I looked up and saw a very big, bright, beautiful yellow-bodied shamrock orb weaver on the visor, just hanging out waiting for prey.
As I said, spiders are pretty fascinating and amazing as well. This one, for instance, had to have worked all night to build the web as the kids had used the car the night before and didn’t get home until after midnight.
In less than 10 hours it had built a web from the visor to the steering wheel and the driver door that was pretty extensive — only to have me tear it up!
This type of spider, the orb weaver, is the one that creates webs consisting of radiating spokes that glisten with the early morning dew.
This is the time of year when you can drive along the highway early in the morning and see these webs in the high grasses off to the side or find them in your flower beds (or cars!).
Spiders are good guys as they are beneficial predators. They eat flies, crickets, mites, and more in and around your home and garden.
I tend to avoid destroying spiders as I need all of the help I can get with controlling pests in my garden.
Species of orb weavers can be as small as one-tenth of an inch up to around one inch in size. The shamrock orb weaver had an abdomen that was as big as a dime and very bright yellow with 4 tiny black spots.
Orb weavers have a spiraling thread of sticky silk in the web; this is what holds the prey. Once the prey is stuck, the weaver then wraps it in silk.
Another very common spider seen now is the funnel web spider. These spiders construct large, flat, horizontal webs of silk, usually lying across the tops of plants.
Their web contains a funnel at one end that serves as the spiders hiding place. When the spider feels the vibration of an insect walking across the web, it dashes out of the funnel, bites the insect, and then carries it back to the funnel.
The funnel weavers tend to be brown and around one-half inch or larger in size.
Again, I tend to leave these webs on the plants as they do not harm the landscape plants and help with insect control.
There are numerous spider species in Ohio and most of them have venom that is not toxic to humans. If you do receive a bite, it usually causes a slight swelling, inflammation, or itching sensations.
Thus far, we have had very few reports of the brown recluse or the black widow spider being found in Ohio.