Very Important Predators
by Billy Timms
All That Glitters
The Golden Silk Orb-Weaver (Trichonephila Clavipes) also known as the Banana Spider or the Calico Spider. Banana spider bodies are usually yellow, orange and brown and can grow up to three inches long. They gained the name “Banana Spider” because of their very large golden spider webs, which vary in size, some reaching over three feet in radius in order for them to gather a larger amount of flying insects, their main food source.
At Congaree National Park in South Carolina, there is an enormous number of Golden Silk Orb-Weavers scattered throughout the woods. Sometimes when walking the trails, the path can be obscured by their large webs, often requiring people to step off the path to walk around.
Banana Spiders are poisonous, but their bites are not usually deadly toward fully adults, although they can suffer some symptoms including rashes, blisters and pain around the area of the bite. They can often be found in warm and humid environments such as forests, gardens, banana plants and fields spread across Asia, Africa, America, and Australia.
Beyond the predator and the prey.
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Our world is their hunting ground. Our back yards are their killing fields. They are the masters of land, sea, and sky, the balancers of ecosystems, and the most important predators on earth.
