The spider web was a gigantic maze of concentric circles just outside our front door. The spider’s web connected the front porch roof to the front porch railing. Right in the center of the giant spider web was a big hairy spider with striped legs.

This big hairy spider was a bit harder to identify than many of the insects I come across. The spider had reddish-brown legs which tapered into black and white striped legs. Her body was brown and covered with hair. All of these photos are of the same spider, but taken on different days.

I believe that my big hairy spider is a variety of Orb Weaver spider of the Araneus or Neoscona family of spiders which are common in the U.S. and Canada. Orb Weaver identification often involves a close-up view of their genitals with a few notable exceptions and unless you are a spider expert, you might narrow down to the family but that’s about as close as you’ll get.

I took my best shot at identifying the big hairy spider. Noting the reddish hue on her legs, she could be a Redfemured Spotted Orbweaver spider (Neoscona Domiciliorum). Her topside however, looked more like a Hentz’s Orbweaver (Neoscona Crucifera). Alternately, she might belong to the Araneus family of Orb Weavers which includes Barn Spiders. Regardless of which Orb Weaver she is, all Orb Weavers share certain traits.

Commonly seen during the autumn months, the Orb Weaver spider webs are oft photographed, especially in the early morning hours when they are covered with dewdrops. If the spiderweb gets damaged, the spider may eat the remaining portion before spinning a new spiderweb. Many Orb Weaver spiders eat their webs at dawn or dusk and then spin a brand new web for the following day even if the existing web isn’t damaged. You might think of Orb Weaver spiders as meticulous housekeepers.

As female Orb Weaver spiders are the ones who usually spin the big spiderwebs up to six feet across, I’m guessing this spider to be female. Male Orb Weaver spiders are usually smaller and instead of spinning webs, they wander around in search of a mate. The males often die after mating while the females die at first frost. Spider eggs are laid in the fall and hatch in the spring spawning several hundred baby spiders. Orb Weaver spider eggs overwinter even in freezing temperatures.

The Orb Weaver spiders come in a wide variety of sizes, colors and patterns with many of them offering striking appearances. The giant black and yellow striped spiders are Orb Weavers as are many of the spiny spiders. The bodies of the larger species of Orb Weaver spiders can grow more than an inch long and that doesn’t include the legs. So a big hairy Orb Weaver spider truly is a BIG hairy spider!

While some of the Orb Weavers are big, scary hairy spiders perched in the middle of a very big spider web, for the most part they are harmless to humans. Most Orb Weaver spider bites are dry bites meaning that they do not inject venom. Only 20% of the Orb Weaver spider bites actually inject venom and those are usually from the female spiders.

The male spiders would rather scurry away or play dead than bite you so you’ve got to really be messing with this big boy to get bitten. Even the females tend to skitter away if you get too close to their web rather than facing off with you in an aggressive stance. If you do get a spider bite from an Orb Weaver spider, it is similar to a bee sting. Keep in mind that there are quite a variety of species and their venom is not all the same so if you’re not sure what you’re messing with, keep a safe distance.

It was a beautiful fall day in Georgia when a hummingbird startled me by buzzing my head. We had a colony of hummingbirds as we regularly fed them but they never buzzed my head unless I was standing near their hummingbird feeder, which was a distance away. The hummingbird buzzed me, hovered in mid-air and then flew off.

Seconds later a large insect buzzed me and then landed on a nearby leaf. It was a big, scary looking bug and I ran indoors to grab the camera fully not expecting him to still be there, but he was. I snapped a few photos of the bug and then looked him up on the internet. I tried a search for horsefly and elongated fly with no luck. Long striped fly hit paydirt, however, and I was able to identify the bug. I wish I’d killed him for he may have been what put the hummingbird into a panic.

The scary bug was a Robber Fly, also known as a Giant Robberfly, Bee Panther or Red-footed Cannibalfly. The latter gave me the willies. Nothing good could come of a bug sporting the name Cannibal and I was pretty certain I’d identified him correctly. His scientific name is Promachus rufipes.

Robber Flies come in a variety of shapes and colors, some resembling fuzzy black and yellow bumblebees and others, like ours, with elongated bodies. They have bearded faces with hairs that cover their long, piercing mouthparts. Robber Flies also have stout, spiny legs for grabbing and holding onto their prey. They perch on plants awaiting their next meal to fly by and then take off to capture their prey in mid-air. They may also attack from above, targeting insects who are themselves resting on a leaf or feeding from flowers such as honeybees, thereby earning the common name Bee Panther.

They feed on bees and wasps, flies and dragonflies, beetles, grasshoppers, and other Robber Flies. Apparently, they’ve also been known to attack and kill hummingbirds. That is why I wish I’d killed it, to protect our hummingbird colony.

The powerful legs of the Robber Fly latch onto their prey while their proboscis stabs into the victim, injecting it with a paralyzing enzyme. Robber Fly saliva contains both a neurotoxin and enzymes which liquify the innards of their prey fairly quickly. Then the Robber Fly sucks out the liquified meal as if through a straw.

Some species of Robber Flies are considered beneficial insects, while others have the potential to harm bumblebees and hummingbirds making them undesirable. While they rarely attack humans, they can inflict quite a nasty bite if provoked causing pain, swelling and redness at the bite site. Predators of the Robber Fly include other Robber Flies (hence the name Cannibalfly), spiders, birds, praying mantis bugs, and assassin bugs.

The Red-footed Cannibalfly that we’d encountered is a Robber Fly which is common in the Southeast from July through October.

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We encountered our first Saddleback Caterpillar two years ago. We turned the caterpillar into a photo opp and added him to the blog after doing some research and finding out how nasty his stingers could be. Thankfully we had not touched the caterpillar as the sting is reputed to “burn like fire” with pain that can last for days. Side effects of a Saddleback Caterpillar sting can include nausea, dizziness, a rash, sweating, cold chills, tingling, numbness, and possibly even heart palpitations.

Every hair on the Saddleback Caterpillar has a poison sac at the base so brushing up against one of these beauties can produce a multitude of stings. It’s not that the caterpillar goes out of his way to sting you; he’s a rather slow-moving slug caterpillar who mostly just sits in one place. Known scientifically as Acharia stimulea or Sibine stimulea, the Saddleback Caterpillar can be found almost year-round in warm climates such as we have in Georgia. His range extends from Massachusetts all the way down into Mexico, and in the cooler climates you’ll likely see him from June through August. Like our encounter two years ago, today’s encounter was in September. Unlike two years ago, this time he stung me.

As part of my fall gardening, I was cutting down some three-foot tall orange lilies that grow on thick stalks filled with a milky white sap. A sudden sharp pain shot into my pinky finger and immediately spread all the way up my arm. The pain was fierce and it did indeed burn like fire. It was as if someone had poured scalding hot water up my arm.

I did not yet know the cause, whether it was an insect or whether the milky sap was somehow responsible. Either way I needed to eliminate the poison as quickly as possible so I ran inside, washed my hand with liquid dish soap, then washed it again with a bar of Octagon Soap that we kept handy to wash off poison ivy oils. My pinky finger was burning like the dickens and I still had pain going up the side of my hand and higher up my arm.

I wondered if some insect had stung me more than once as I reached down into the tall flowers. Though I couldn’t see any type of a stinger sticking out, I’d read that scraping with a credit card was effective for removing cactus hairs so I grabbed a business card and scraped my finger. My husband grows hundreds of cactus plants so cactus hair removal is a given in our house and it was all I could think of to do. Scraping the area actually did seem to help a little but the best suggestion to remove Saddleback Caterpillar hairs is to use sticky tape.

I told my husband that something had stung me but I didn’t know what. My theory was a wasp sting, wondering if I’d encountered a Cow Killer Wasp or a scorpion. I’d never had a sting result in pain shooting two feet from the original sting so I figured something nastier than normal had stung me. We’d found Cow Killer Wasps and scorpions in the past so either was a potential culprit. I also considered a Saddleback Caterpillar as we’d previously found one of them as well.

My husband offered a different theory — one which threw me into a total panic. What if it were a spider bite? We’d also spotted a Black Widow spider a couple years earlier and now the fear of a medical emergency took hold. I had to find out what stung me.

The last thing I said to my husband before going on a hunting trip in the garden was that a Saddleback Caterpillar sting at least wouldn’t kill you, so of all the really nasty options, a Saddleback sting would have been preferable to a Black Widow spider bite. The first place I looked for the culprit was in the garbage can I’d been throwing the garden waste into and there I spotted a Saddleback Caterpillar, still sitting happily on the lily I’d just cut down.

At least now I knew what had stung me. While it hurt like hell, I could stop worrying about a death march or a trip to the hospital. I spent the next several hours either photographing the Saddleback Caterpillar or looking to see if he had siblings nearby. Photos on the internet often showed several caterpillars huddled together so I knew it was a strong likelihood that there’d be more of the Saddleback Caterpillars in the same garden bed.

While I did not find a whole nest of Saddleback Caterpillars, I did find one more. He was a bit bigger than the first and about two feet away, feeding on my Black-Eyed Susans. Once I’d taken several photos and exhausted the search for more of these colorful, lime green caterpillars with a brown saddle on their backs, I debated the fate of the two I’d found. The original Saddleback Caterpillar of two years ago was left to his own devices, where he promptly went on to be fruitful and multiply. Did I really want to let them multiply for future encounters to sting me again?

I struggled with the decision. I hate killing creatures of nature with a few exceptions. Fleas, mosquitos, cockroaches, rats, mice, ants, and termites are among the exceptions. Any creature who goes out of its way to attack you, feed on you or your pets, or damage your home, are on my hit list and will soon find their demise. Innocent creatures going about their business and not seeking you out, they fall into a different category of God’s creatures and I don’t generally kill them.

My conscience struggled, finally coming to the decision to relocate the Saddleback Caterpillars. My method of relocation probably wouldn’t have met with the approval of my neighbors. I took them down to the lake intending to set them asail, each on his own leaf where they’d at least have a chance to land somewhere off of our property. The first caterpillar went off on his leaf and as far as I know, he had a good chance of landing somewhere. I watched him sailing away for a long time.

The second Saddleback Caterpillar, however, was not as cooperative. I could not get him onto a leaf. I laid a leaf down next to him and he wanted no part of it. I nudged him with a piece of pine straw but instead of moving away from the pine straw onto the leaf, the caterpillar curled around as if trying to sting the pine straw. I was fascinated by his spunk. Every time I tried to nudge him, he did not fail to curl every stinger into the intruding object.

We did battle for several minutes with his stubborn refusal to crawl onto the leaf. Then we had an accident and he went off the edge of the dock and into the water. NOOOoooo! That wasn’t my intention! I threw the leaf down next to him hoping he’d latch onto it but he still wanted no part of that leaf, even to save his own life. I ran and got a stick hoping that would do it for him but by then it was too late. The Saddleback Caterpillar didn’t seem to have any will to latch onto anything. He rolled around on top of the water for a few brief seconds and then went still. Apparently, caterpillars drown much the same way we do.

I made one last ditch effort to give him a stick to grab hold of but his lifeless body sank down into the water. I watched his lime green carcass as it sank all the way to the bottom of the lake. I wondered if a fish would try to eat the dead caterpillar and if so, would the fish experience the stingers as I had? I felt horrible. I’d murdered this poor, innocent creature. I stood up and took small comfort in watching the other Saddleback Caterpillar sail away on his leaf. Hopefully he landed safely somewhere.

To read about our original encounter with the Saddleback Caterpillar and learn more about this fascinating creature, see the Stinging Caterpillar blog post. It offers more photos including a Saddleback Caterpillar getting ready to pop a turd.

My sting, by the way, stopped hurting by the next day and I did not experience any of the other symptoms.

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