Jump to content

Argiope (spider)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from St Andrew's Cross spider)

Argiope
Temporal range: Neogene–present
A. flavipalpis on web with stabilimentum in Ghana
Writing spider eating a swallowtail butterfly
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Araneomorphae
Family: Araneidae
Genus: Argiope
Audouin, 1826[1]
Type species
Aranea lobata
Pallas, 1772[1]
Species

87, see text.

Synonyms[1]
  • Austrargiope

Argiope is a genus of large orb weaver spiders in the family Araneidae. Species in the genus often have a strikingly coloured abdomen and long, often banded legs, and build large, circular orb webs that are often marked with a conspicuous white web decoration. The genus is distributed throughout the world, and most countries with tropical or temperate climates host one or more species. They are commonly found in gardens, grasslands, fields and other areas with vegetation.

Description

[edit]

Argiope are large orb weavers; females reach a body length of up to 3 cm (1.2 in).[2]: 202  The carapace is typically covered in silvery hairs, which reflect sunlight when the spider crawls in the sun, giving it a metallic, white appearance.[3][4]: 257 [2]: 202  The head region of the carapace is considerably narrower than the wide thoracic region behind it, and the chelicerae are relatively weak.[4]: 259  The legs are long and slender, often dark and sometimes banded.[2]: 203  The first pair of legs is the longest and the second almost as long; the fourth pair is slightly shorter or, in African species, about as long, and the third pair is much shorter.[4]: 259 [2]: 203 

The upper side of the abdomen is often brightly coloured, commonly with silver or gold and black.[4]: 253, 257 [2]: 203  At its simplest the abdomen is oval and up to twice as long as it is wide, but it often has lateral lobes or projections, and in some species its rear end extends over the spinnerets. The underside usually has a dark median area with white spots, bordered by two pale longitudinal bands.[2]: 203 

The genus shows pronounced sexual dimorphism. The male is much smaller than the female;[4]: 253, 257  in African species, the female's body length can be up to five times the male's.[2]: 202  Males of the same species vary considerably in size and colour.[4]: 253  The male's carapace is often bare or only sparsely covered with hairs, and its chelicerae are often very small.[2]: 202–203 

Taxonomy

[edit]

The genus was first described by Jean Victoire Audouin in 1826,[1] although he wrote that it had been established by Savigny.[5] The type species is Aranea lobata Pallas, 1772.[1]

In the first edition of the work in which the description appeared (Description de l'Égypte: Histoire Naturelle), Audouin used the spelling "Argyope" for both the French vernacular name and the Latin generic name.[5] In the second edition, he continued to use "Argyope" for the French vernacular name, but the first mention of the Latin generic name was spelled "Argiope", although the binomial names of the species continued to use "Argyope".[6] This led to controversy as to whether Audouin had intended to correct the spelling of the generic name, which is derived from the Greek αργιόπη. In 1975, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature validated the spelling "Argiope", on the basis that the change from the first to the second edition was an intended correction.[7][8]

Etymology

[edit]

Sources differ on the origin of the genus name. It has been said to derive from the Latin word argentum, meaning silver,[9] but it is also given as derived from the Greek Ἀργιόπη (Argiópē), the basis on which the spelling "Argiope" rather than "Argyope" was treated as a correction (see above).[7][8] Argiope is a name from Greek mythology, interpreted as meaning "she of the white face".[10]

Common names

[edit]

Argiope bruennichi is commonly known as the wasp spider. In Australia, Argiope keyserlingi and Argiope aetherea are known as St Andrew's cross spiders, for their habit of resting in the web with paired legs outstretched in the shape of an X, mirroring the large white web decoration beneath them, which has the same form as the cross of St Andrew.[9]

In North America, Argiope aurantia is commonly known as the black and yellow garden spider, zipper spider, corn spider, or writing spider, because of the similarity of its web decorations to writing.

The East Asian species Argiope amoena is known in Japan as kogane-gumo. In the Philippines, Argiope species are known as gagambang ekis ("X spider") and gagambang pari ("priest spider"), as the spider's body resembles a priest's head with a mitre.

Species

[edit]

As of September 2026, the genus includes 87 species and two subspecies.[1] The list of species continues to be revised. In 2026, A. undulata, which Levi had treated as a synonym of A. pulchella in 1983, was reinstated as a valid species,[1] and A. sapoa was found to be a synonym of Gea spinipes.[11]

Distribution and habitat

[edit]

Argiope species are found worldwide, absent only from the coldest regions.[4]: 259  The greatest number of species occurs in New Guinea and Australia, and the number declines towards the Asian mainland.[4]: 256  In 1983, Levi counted 49 species in the western Pacific region including eastern Asia, 2 in Europe, 7 in the Americas and about 10 in Africa and western Asia;[4]: 259  Bjørn's 1997 revision of the species of Africa and its neighbouring islands recognised 13.[2]: 199 

Three species now occur in Europe. A. bruennichi and A. lobata are widespread across the Old World, while A. trifasciata, which is native to the Americas, has spread worldwide and been introduced to Portugal.[12][1]

Most Argiope hang their conspicuous webs in the open,[4]: 256  although some species, such as A. keyserlingi, build mainly in dense, complex vegetation (see below).

Behaviour and ecology

[edit]

Web

[edit]
Argiope sp. blending in to an elaborate stabilimentum in Tanzania
An Argiope web with stabilimentum in Independence, Missouri

Argiope build a characteristic orb web, usually with a stabilimentum (see below).[4]: 259  The spiders are active by day and rest head-down at the centre of the web.[4]: 257 

Most orb webs are nearly invisible, but Argiope webs include a visible pattern of banded silk that is pure white. This pattern is called the stabilimentum (plural stabilimenta) or web decoration, and it reflects UV light.[9] It is made of a thickened zigzag weave of many threads near the centre of the web.[13] Some stabilimenta have only two bands, as in the North American A. aurantia; more commonly there are four, though not all may be present.[4]: 257  Depending on the species, the decoration may be a vertical line, a circular weave around the centre of the web, or an X-shaped cross, which often has a hollow centre. In species that build a cross, the spider aligns one pair of its legs with each of the four lines, forming a complete "X" of white lines with the spider at its centre.

Several functions have been proposed for stabilimenta. One suggestion is that they warn birds away from the web, since their bills and feathers could become gummed up with silk.[4]: 258  Stabilimenta have been shown to play a role in attracting prey to the web,[14][15] and possibly in preventing its destruction by large animals. The centres of the webs are often just under 1 metre above the ground, too low for anything much larger than a rabbit to walk under.[citation needed] It has therefore been speculated that the conspicuousness of the spider and its web prevents larger animals from accidentally destroying the web and possibly crushing the spider. Other studies suggest that stabilimenta may instead lead predators to the spider; species such as A. keyserlingi place their webs predominantly in closed, complex habitats, such as among sedges.[citation needed]

One study found that cross-shaped decorations are more effective at attracting insects than linear ones because they better match the properties of insect form vision. The authors proposed that the linear decoration is the ancestral form, and that the cross-shaped design evolved from it in several Asian and Australian Argiope species.[16]

As Argiope sit in the centre of their webs during the day, they have developed several responses to predators, including dropping off the web, retreating to its periphery, and rapidly pumping the web in bursts of up to 30 seconds, similar to the motion made by the unrelated Pholcus phalangioides.[17] Some species can instantly change the colour of their abdomen when they drop out of the web.[4]: 257 

Diet

[edit]
A banded orb weaving spider wraps up a large milkweed bug and then cuts it from its web, illustrating the protection the bug gains from feeding on milkweed.

Like most garden spiders, Argiope eat insects and are capable of consuming prey up to twice their size. A. submaronica has been reported to occasionally feed on the small bat Rhynchonycteris naso;[18] the report used the name A. savignyi, which is now treated as a synonym of A. submaronica.[12]: 299 

Reproduction

[edit]

When it is time to mate, the male spins a companion web alongside the female's. In A. bruennichi, the female often eats the male during mating.[19] In some species, the tip of the male's pedipalp – the embolus, through which sperm is transferred – breaks off during copulation, sometimes together with other parts of the palp. The broken fragment remains in the female's genital opening and plugs it.[12]

After mating, the female lays her eggs and places her egg sac in the web. The sac contains between 400 and 1,400 eggs. The eggs hatch in autumn, but the spiderlings overwinter in the sac and emerge in spring. The egg sac is made of multiple layers of silk that protect its contents from damage; however, many species of insects have been observed to parasitise the egg sacs.

Injury and autotomy

[edit]

Argiope use autotomy – restricting blood flow to one of their own legs until it falls off – to minimise blood loss due to injury. This response is triggered by pain.[20][21] Honeybee and wasp venoms induce this pain in Argiope even when the injury is minor, causing the spider to drop the affected leg. The same effect can be produced by chemically fractionated components of those venoms (specifically serotonin, histamine and phospholipase A2) that also cause pain in humans.[20][21]

Venom and bites

[edit]

Like almost all other spiders, Argiope are harmless to humans. They may bite if grabbed, but do not otherwise attack large animals. Their venom is not regarded as a serious medical problem for humans; it often contains a wide variety of polyamine toxins with potential as therapeutic agents.[22]

Chemical structure of argiopine

The polyamine toxins identified in Argiope venom include argiopine, argiopinines and pseudoargiopinines.[23] Argiopine, also known as argiotoxin-636 (ArgTX-636), was first isolated from the venom of A. lobata in 1986 and was one of the first acylpolyamine toxins to be described.[24][25] It is made up of residues of asparagine, arginine, 2,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid and a polyamine.[24][26] Argiopine, the argiopinines and the pseudoargiopinines all block glutamate receptors.[26][23] At concentrations of 0.01–1 μmol/L, argiopine blocks insect glutamate receptors as well as vertebrate kainate receptors and AMPA receptors; the other polyamines in the venom have a lower affinity for these receptors.[27]

A bite from the black and yellow garden spider (A. aurantia) is comparable to a bee sting, causing redness and swelling, and is not considered a medical concern for a healthy adult.[28][29][30] Although the spiders are not aggressive, the very young, the elderly, people with compromised immune systems and people with known venom allergies should exercise caution around them, as they would around a beehive.[28]

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Genus Argiope". World Spider Catalog. doi:10.24436/2. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Bjørn, Per de Place (1997). "A taxonomic revision of the African part of the orb-weaving genus Argiope (Araneae: Araneidae)". Entomologica Scandinavica. 28 (2): 199–239. doi:10.1163/187631297X00060. ISSN 0013-8711.
  3. ↑ Hammond, George. "Argiope aurantia". Animal Diversity Web. Retrieved 2022-09-07.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Levi, Herbert W. (1983). "The orb-weaver genera Argiope, Gea, and Neogea from the western Pacific region (Araneae: Araneidae, Argiopinae)" (PDF). Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 150 (5): 247–338. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
  5. 1 2 Audouin (1826), p. 121.
  6. ↑ Audouin (1827), p. 328.
  7. 1 2 Melville, R.V. (1975). "Opinion 1038 Argiope Audouin (Arachnida, Aranea): placed on the official list of generic names in zoology". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 32 (2): 105–109. Retrieved 2017-08-21.
  8. 1 2 Levi, Herbert W. (2004). "Comments and new records for the American genera Gea and Argiope with the description of a new species (Araneae: Araneidae)". Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 158 (2): 47–65. doi:10.3099/0027-4100(2004)158[47:CANRFT]2.0.CO;2. S2CID 85930723.
  9. 1 2 3 Whyte, Robert; Anderson, Greg (2017). A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia. Clayton South, Vic.: CSIRO Publishing. p. 80. ISBN 9780643107076.
  10. ↑ Kerényi, Carl (1959). The Heroes of the Greeks. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 27.
  11. 1 2 Dhiya'ulhaq, Naufal Urfi; Rahmadi, Cahyo (2026). "A new species of orb-weaver genus Argiope Audouin, 1826 from West Kalimantan, Indonesia, with notes on a new synonymy of Gea spinipes C. L. Koch, 1843 (Araneae: Araneidae)". Zootaxa. 5845 (2): 304–318. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.5845.2.5.
  12. 1 2 3 Jäger, Peter (2012). "A review on the spider genus Argiope Audouin 1826 with special emphasis on broken emboli in female epigynes (Araneae: Araneidae: Argiopinae)" (PDF). Beiträge zur Araneologie. 7: 272–331. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03.
  13. ↑ "Genus Argiope". BugGuide.Net. Archived from the original on 2013-10-04. Retrieved 2016-11-26.
  14. ↑ Tso, I-Min (1996). "Stabilimentum of the garden spider Argiope trifasciata: a possible prey attractant". Animal Behaviour. 52 (1): 183–191. doi:10.1006/anbe.1996.0163. ISSN 0003-3472.
  15. ↑ Blamires, Sean J.; Hochuli, Dieter F.; Thompson, Michael B. (2008). "Why cross the web: decoration spectral properties and prey capture in an orb spider (Argiope keyserlingi) web". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 94 (2): 221–229. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.2008.00999.x. ISSN 0024-4066.
  16. ↑ Cheng, R.-C.; Yang, E.-C.; Lin, C.-P.; Herberstein, M. E.; Tso, I.-M. (2010). "Insect form vision as one potential shaping force of spider web decoration design". Journal of Experimental Biology. 213 (5): 759–768. doi:10.1242/jeb.037291. ISSN 0022-0949.
  17. ↑ Blamires, Hochuli & Thompson (2007).
  18. ↑ Timm & Losilla (2007).
  19. ↑ Fromhage, Uhl & Schneider (2003).
  20. 1 2 Eisner, Thomas; Camazine, Scott (1983-06-01). "Spider leg autotomy induced by prey venom injection: An adaptive response to "pain"?". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 80 (11): 3382–3385. Bibcode:1983PNAS...80.3382E. doi:10.1073/pnas.80.11.3382. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 394047. PMID 16593325.
  21. 1 2 Fiorito, G. (1986). "Is there "pain" in invertebrates?". Behavioural Processes. 12 (4): 383–388. doi:10.1016/0376-6357(86)90006-9. PMID 24924695. S2CID 26181117.
  22. ↑ Strømgaard, K. & Mellor, I. (2004). "AMPA receptor ligands: Synthetic and pharmacological studies of polyamines and polyamine toxins". Medicinal Research Reviews. 24 (5): 589–620. doi:10.1002/med.20004. PMID 15224382. S2CID 24802888.
  23. 1 2 Kiskin, N. I.; Kryshtal', O. A.; Tsyndrenko, A. Ya.; Volkova, T. M.; Grishin, E. V. (1989). "Argiopine, argiopinines, and pseudoargiopinines as glutamate receptor blockers in hippocampal neurons". Neurophysiology. 21 (6): 525–532. doi:10.1007/BF01051949.
  24. 1 2 Grishin, E. V.; Volkova, T. M.; Arseniev, A. S.; Reshetova, O. S.; Onoprienko, V. V.; Magazanik, L. G.; Antonov, S. M.; Fedorova, I. M. (1986). "Структурно-функциональная характеристика аргиопина – блокатора ионных каналов из яда паука Argiope lobata" [Structural and functional characterization of argiopine, an ion channel blocker from the venom of the spider Argiope lobata] (PDF). Bioorganicheskaya Khimiya (in Russian). 12 (8): 1121–1124. PMID 2430580. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-04.
  25. ↑ Twomey, Edward C.; Yelshanskaya, Maria V.; Vassilevski, Alexander A.; Sobolevsky, Alexander I. (2018). "Mechanisms of channel block in calcium-permeable AMPA receptors". Neuron. 99 (5): 956–968.e4. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2018.07.027. PMC 6181147. PMID 30122377.
  26. 1 2 Grishin, E. V.; Volkova, T. M.; Arseniev, A. S. (1989). "Isolation and structure analysis of components from venom of the spider Argiope lobata". Toxicon. 27 (5): 541–549. doi:10.1016/0041-0101(89)90115-3. ISSN 0041-0101.
  27. ↑ Vassilevski, A. A.; Kozlov, S. A.; Grishin, E. V. (2009). "Molecular diversity of spider venom". Biochemistry (Moscow). 74 (13): 1505–1534. doi:10.1134/S0006297909130069.
  28. 1 2 Hawkinson, Candice. "Beneficials in the Garden: Black-and-Yellow Argiope Spider". www.tamu.edu. Texas A&M University. Retrieved 2014-09-24.
  29. ↑ "Garden Spiders: Facts, Identification & Control". orkin.com. 11 April 2018. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
  30. ↑ Spencer, Jill (2018-10-29). "The Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope Aurantia)". owlcation.com. Retrieved 2019-11-16.

Sources

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Argiope_(spider)&oldid=1377580206"