Glenn's Project: Decorating The Webs of
the Florida Banana Spider
The banana spider below is a large and brightly colored female. They are consummate web builders, building large and beautiful webs sometimes high above the ground. Their webs are nearly invisible, and range from 8 to 36 square feet, allowing them to trap a wide variety of insects.
The wind passes through the sticky web easily. By decorating this web with colored mylar strips, I made it dance in the wind and reflect the light in many colors. Initially, the spider attacked the mylar, probably thinking it was an insect.
A closeup of the spider and the colorful mylar. The mylar resembles miniature flags or banners in the breeze.
Since the large spider is a female, I decorated a second, larger web using only pink mylar. This banana spider ignored the intrusion for about an hour.
Below is another view of web, mylar and spider in the morning sun.
Both spiders went to work cutting away the mylar and rebuilding the web. This is important because insects will avoid the web if they can see it. Below, one of the artists watches as the spider cuts a portion of the web away, later the spider will rebuild that section to match the rest.
Below is a closeup of the female with the web restored and nearly invisible.
