Common Barn Spider (Araneus cavaticus)

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The Common Barn Spider (Araneus cavaticus) is a nocturnal, black and brown spider with striped legs. They also have markings on their underside that are typically a black background with two white marks inside the black, although color ranges can be quite magnificent. The photo above shows the classic pose these spiders exhibit, with the front four legs grouped together, and the back legs tucked similarly. They will sit quite still for pictures in this pose, but trust me, if you bump the table they will pop up and run like lightning!

Like many other species of orb weavers, it takes down its web and rebuilds another web every evening. Its "orb" web is the archetypical web that contains symmetrical spokes connected by a spiral inside. They hide during the day and at night will sit in the middle of the web and wait for an insect to land on the web when hunting.

These spiders are aggressive toward each other (and toward humans). They will attack each other if in close quarters, though many may inhabit the same structure or area at any given time. They are most commonly found in rafters and wooden structures in suburban and rural structures or areas, and on boats near lakes, thus getting their name, "barn spider".

They are mostly found in North America in late summer and through autumn. Barn spiders are most common in the Northeast US and Canada.

When agitated (by a puff of air, for instance) these spiders sometimes bounce up and down in the center of their webs, possibly in an attempt to look larger and more threatening.

Raynox DCR-150 and Raynox DCR-250, stacked and mounted on my Panasonic Lumix FZ8.