Orb Weavers, Family Araneidae
When the word spider comes up, most people probably think of the orb spider. The orb web is a structural and visual masterpiece. Depending on species, some orb webs are vertical, horizontal or somewhere in between. Some species build extras such as a tangle like area of lines near the orb, extra horizontal trap lines either running above or below the orb, and some build the orb with a missing section. There are many varieties. Some species build the web at dusk and take it down at dawn, eating and recycling the old silk as they tear down. Some orbs barely cover a quarter while others are strung between trees as far as 60 feet away and are strong enough to catch birds and bats. A neat thing to do is to watch an orb weaver build its web. For most spiders the process takes less than an hour.
