Yikes again! What is it?

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workinforwood

workinforwood

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Eaton Rapids, Michigan, USA.
Found this hunting for grasshoppers with daughter for fishing bait. Never seen a spider anything like this before! It was inside a cottonwood leaf that it had curled up with it's webbing. Very close to a swampy location, in Michigan..my backyard. We are all sitting here amazed at this thing, the ball on the back is about the size of a dime and the spider doesn't move very fast. We think it might be an egg sack. It's the biggest spider I've ever seen that isn't imported from a pet store for this geographic area.
 

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Common garden? They are that color, and tend to the large side. They make fairly neat typical spider webs, ussually right across the path you want to take in the dark!
 
That helps. I tracked it down finally, it's related to a garden spider, it is a marble orb weaver. I haven't seen any garden spiders or orb weavers anywhere close to this size before, let alone pregnant like this. She has to be at least 2.5 maybe 3 inches long with legs stretched out...I never even heard of an orb weaver, but like you said, I sure have walked into many a web, especially between the stair rails heading down to the shop. No, I'm not making a pen from her, I examined her, photo shot her and then released her.
 
Would be nice to have some object to get an idea of her size from here. looks like she is in the bottom of a mason jar and the size does not really register. With that size you might keep an extra close eye on any small pets or children running around the yard.
Other than Black widows I like to have spiders around. Had one on the corner of my porch and would go out every third evening and watch it tear down it's web and rebuild it. If I did not see anything in it's web for a couple fo days I would stun a fly or somethign and toss it in the web.
And no Al I did not name it Charlotte. I was working on a prototype leash when she dissapeared though. guess she didn't like my half dead flies much.
 
I don't believe that's an egg sac... I think it's actually the abdomen of the spider. The symmetrical arrangement of the "dimples" is a clue. The second photo (of the underside) shows the pointed posterior, with the darker-colored spinneret clearly visible. I believe that's the year-round appearance of this bugger.
 
Looks to me like the dreaded "mug wump" spider.
Typically they sit on a fence with their mug on one side and their wump on the other.
Did you see any of this?
 
First...I almost fell of the chair with Nick's comment!

I still think it's a Marble Orb Weaver, mostly because of it's size, color and location. That web site is pretty fascinating, but the crab spiders listed are all in the 3-10 mm size range, which is very puny, and this spider is about 70 mm or more. I should have put a coin in the container, it isn't a mason jar, it's a big tupperware bowl. When I flipped it over, the "egg sac" did have a shell like sound hitting the plastic. I'm only grasping at straws from what I've seen poking around online and compared also with size and geography.
 
It looks like some spiders we have around here that like dark damp tight spaces. i will find them under pieces of ply wood that have been laying on the ground etc. But mine are not nearly that big. more like the 10mm version. I agree that the rear end is not an egg sack. every egg sack I have seen looks like cotton. even from the picture I can tell it is to smooth, and I've never seen an egg sack with the dimples. I have seen spiders carrying there young around on there backs but even that does not look like this one. lol, my wife just solved the problem of identifying it. She said it is an "Ugly sum B**ch". Don't know about you but I'm willing to let her have her way on the matter.
 
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