Spidey's New Boyfriend

We have had a brown orb weaver spider, "Spidey", that has made its web by the back porch light for about 3 weeks now.  This little spider has become nightly entertainment as we smoke on the back porch, as we do not smoke inside.  We watch it build its web, catch bugs, and even perform web cleanup duties when it takes its web down each night.  We waited and worried it might be dying when it went MIA for about three days, however, it turned out to be only molting.  Tonight  we were determined to watch it start its web building from the start, so we waited and waited.  Nothing happened.  The reason became apparent when along came another spider. At first we thought we were going to witness the war of the spiders, but it turned out to be much more romantic.



During the last week we noticed Spidey molt, nothing strange in that behavior, beyond the fact that "he" went missing into its little hidey spot for three days and came out a lot bigger than "he" went in and a lot more colorful.  Then the building of the web by its hidey hole began.  This web wasn't like the standard circular web that orb weavers are known for but a messier type web.  The reason for this messy type web became apparent when the aforementioned smaller spider came a calling.  Spidey (as we had nicknamed our spider) had a male caller.

Me and my cousin watched to see if this male caller would be eaten or was it coming around for a different reason.

Needless to say Spidey has a boyfriend. When we left them to be alone after taking pics for our spider porn collection, they were busy touching legs together in every increasing fastness as well as what can only be described as bouncing on each other without touching, and then flinging apart. 

                                                  (this is something similar to what we saw) 

We left our little friend to get her (not him as we had called it) groove on. So breed on little Spidey and if are so lucky maybe next year we can see the new "Spidey's" start their new lives and maybe once more be entranced by the life of a spider and its fascinating web spinning.

I however have to say it was very neat to see spiders mate without it being on the television.  I look at wildlife and each time I see something in person I can only think to myself how amazing the world really is.