Posted by Lisa Waltz on May 7, 2007

Q: We were outside playing today and saw what looked like a group of spiders with a large orange body, 8 legs that had some white/light and some black on them. I couldn't find anything about it and wondered if you could identify it. I have a picture, but couldn't find a place to upload it.

State: North Carolina

Habitat: suburban/yard

A: Thanks for including the photos with your question. The shot of the animals isn't really close enough for me to get a good look, but I think your decision that these are spiders is probably correct.

There are so many different kinds of spiders that it really would take a good, close look at one of them to come up with a definite identification. From what I can see, they are NOT poisonous so no worry there. The closest I can come to for a reasonable identification would be that these might be orb-weaving spiders in the genus Araneus. The common garden spiders that one often sees are in this family. You might want to google this name and see if you can come up with a match. Other than that, I'd suggest looking at a good book that you should be able to find in a library. Check out the "Golden Guide to Spiders and Their Kin". There are lots of pictures in this book and you can probably get fairly close to "your" spider. Good luck and thanks for writing.

John Wiessinger ( May 8, 2007)