Golden Silk Orb-Weaver Spider

Golden silk orb-weavers, now placed in the genus Trichonephila (long known as Nephila), are large orb-weaving spiders celebrated for the golden color of their silk. The pigment gives the web a yellow shimmer in sunlight, and the silk is among the strongest natural fibers known.

These spiders occur throughout the warmer parts of the world, including the southeastern United States, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Females are strikingly large, with long banded legs and elongated bodies, while males are tiny by comparison and often live at the edge of the female's web.

The webs are large, semi-permanent orbs, sometimes over a meter across, with characteristic yellow silk and a zone of tangled threads. Golden silk orb-weavers are patient sit-and-wait predators that capture flying insects in these durable snares.

Look for these features:

• Large female with an elongated body up to about 5 cm, and much smaller males
• Long legs with dark and yellowish bands and tufts of hair near the joints
• Silvery or yellowish cephalothorax and a patterned, cylindrical abdomen
• Distinctive golden-yellow silk in a large orb web
• Female typically hanging head-down at the web hub

Lookalikes include other large orb-weavers, but the golden silk and pronounced size difference between sexes are key.

Golden silk orb-weavers live in warm temperate and tropical regions worldwide, including the American Southeast, Central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa, southern Asia, and Australia. They build webs in sunny gaps between trees, along woodland edges, in gardens, and across trails, where flying insects are abundant. They are most conspicuous in late summer and autumn.

These spiders are sit-and-wait predators that capture flying insects such as flies, bees, moths, and even small dragonflies in their strong golden webs. They wrap prey in silk and feed at leisure. Females may leave old prey remains and small kleptoparasitic spiders in the web. As predators of flying insects, they help regulate insect populations.

Golden silk orb-weavers undergo simple development typical of spiders. Females produce egg sacs containing hundreds of eggs, often hidden on nearby vegetation. Spiderlings hatch and disperse, sometimes by ballooning on silk threads. They molt repeatedly as they grow, with females taking longer to mature into the large adults. In warm climates activity peaks in the warmer half of the year, with adults dying back in cooler seasons.