Any idea what kind of spider this is? Distance from back legs to front legs about 2 inches. Very poor photo taken with a point and shoot camera and difficult lighting conditions.

Banana spider, great big, no?
Shouldn't be a problem.

Believe it's a Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia). Common in California and Oregon.

And generally harmless to humans. Good to have in your yard--it eats lots of bugs.

flashguy

This looks like a run of the mill Orb Weaver. They come in an incredible range of colors, sizes, shapes, and morphology. This doesn’t look like a Garden Spider (Argiope)- the morphology is way off. They have really long legs.

I’ll agree with gearhounds. They build some really neat looking webs, and catch a lot of bugs.

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And generally harmless to humans

Hmmm...there is something about that word "generally" that is somewhat suspicious. Kinda like, "black bears generally don't attack humans to eat them......

To me, that web looks busier and less orby (technical term...not! ) than classic orb weavers make - those are usually highly organized two-dimensional (on a plane, like a sheet). This kind of thing:



Orb-weaver or not, that's not one of the venomous spiders to worry about.
What you have there is a large, harmless, and - if you garden - fairly effective pest-removing gardening assistant.

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Originally posted by Southern Rebel:

quote:

And generally harmless to humans

Hmmm...there is something about that word "generally" that is somewhat suspicious. Kinda like, "black bears generally don't attack humans to eat them......

They are not aggressive and don't usually bite humans. I suppose there might be a few persons who are allergic to their venom if they were bitten. For most of us the worst probable harm would be in the thrashing we do when running into one of their webs.

flashguy

A Yellow Garden Spider, or Orb Weaver seems to be the closest to what I saw. Didn’t think location was relevant when I started this thread, but this photo was taken in the back country of the Southern Oregon Coastal Range and a very long ways from any civilization. I can’t recall seeing any of these at home. I wish I had my good camera with me as the lighting of sun coming down thru trees made it very difficult to even get the spider in the view finder of the point and shoot camera I had with me.

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To me, that web looks busier and less orby

An orb web is an orb web, no matter how orby (sounds like a Dr Seuss title ). There are parallel trap sections lower left- some are more intricate and busier than others I suppose.