Common Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia)

About this time of year we start to enjoy the big webs and bright yellow bodies of the Yellow Garden Spider. Today we found one busily wrapping up a snack she had caught in her web … hard to tell, but just possibly a Japanese Beetle. Hope so. The fresh meal is black “bag” by the spider’s head – the larger, paler package to the right is something else being saved for supper perhaps.

These are beautiful animals.