Writing Spider

At my first babysitting job today Gabriel (2 yrs old) and I had the "pleasure" of stumbling upon this spider. I have to admit I was intrigued, but trust me I did not want to get to close. Spiders are fascinating to look at but I would die if it jumped on me. Unfortunately the picture is not the greatest as I took it with my cell phone camera, but I think you can get the general idea (big and scary looking). He was probably about 3 1/2 to 4 inches long.

Of course I had to harass him to see what he would do (plus I also wanted him to move so Gabriel would see him), so I poked his web with a LONG piece of grass and he did the funniest thing. Instead of scurrying away as I would have expected he started to swing his web forward and back as if he was on a trampoline. It was pretty cool! He also had a cool design on his web. You can kind of see it in the picture - the thicker zig zag down the middle of the web.

When I got home this evening I wanted to find out what kind of spider he was to see if I would have died had he jumped on me and bit me. Come to find out he is pretty common in this area. He is a Writing Spider or also called a Scribbler Spider. Well that was my science lesson for today!