How Much Do Garden Orb Spiders Eat in a Day?

No one knows how much garden orb spiders eat every day.  They will eat whatever they catch and at the end of the day, most of them eat their web and build a new one.

The amount a garden orb spider eats in a day depends on the type and size of the spider. There are almost 3000 species of the orb-weaver spiders around the world, and they can vary in size from several millimetres to four centimetres. 

Catching Their Prey

Since it is impossible to say exactly how much a garden orb spider eats in a day, let’s look at how they catch their food.  Most orb weavers spin a round, or spiral wheel-shaped, web.  This is how they got their name.  When an insect is caught, they stun it and wrap it in silk. 

Many rebuild a web everyday, and others do not spin a web at all.  Instead of a web, some make a sticky globule which they dangle from their front legs by a thread.  The scent in the globule will attract male moths.  When they are caught, the spider reels them in. Some orb weaver spiders look like seeds or thorns as they sit on their web.  Most webs are vertical and the spider sits upside down on it.

Characteristics of Orb Weaver Spiders

Here are what some of the 3000 types of orb weaver spiders look like:     

• Garden Orb Weavers are reddish brown or gray and 1.5 to 3 centimetres long.  They have a leaf shaped pattern on their abdomen and two humps towards the front.  Some have a white stripe or a brown stripe edged with white.
• Golden Orb Weavers can be from two to four centimetres in length and have a silver or plum colored body with dark legs.  Sometime the legs have yellow bands on them. 
• Humped Orb Weavers (or Silver Orb Weavers) have a silver body with green and black or yellow markings.  Their body is only one centimetre long.  The abdomen has humps that look like shoulders. 

Interesting Facts About Orb Weavers

Orb Weavers have three claws which help them build their webs.  The web starts with the silken strings making a Y shape.  The main support lines, or radii, are not sticky.  There are two sets of spiral lines.  The inner spiral is made of smooth thread like the radiating threads and covers about one third of the web. The outer spiral is made of elastic, sticky threads coated with liquid.  The third claw is used to walk on the non-sticky part of the web.  Some of the orb weavers that are active in the day put decorations on their webs to keep birds from flying into them.    

Orb weavers have poor vision but are extremely sensitive to vibrations in the web.  They are not dangerous and will eat many insects.  They live for one season only, and lay eggs in a sac that will hatch in the spring.

Fossil evidence shows that the orb weavers have been around a very long time.  Three of the families were in existence 140 million years ago.  They most likely originated during the Jurassic period, which lasted between 200 and 140 million years ago.