The picture immediately above gives you a pretty good idea of just how many spiders there were in this area. The location is Santa Fe, TX, at a local tree nursery and garden. The season is late summer to early autumn, and these spiders, commonly known as "banana spiders" are literally everywhere. There is a golden orb weaver spider in every red circle that you see in the picture. I made these circles in Windows Paint, before I resized the image to a smaller size. The spiders were positively identified before the circles were made, but there are many that I missed.

The webs of these rather large arachnids span about 4 feet on average, but Aron and I have seen them as large as 4 feet in diameter, centered between two trees that are more than 10 feet across. Commonly known to the folks of South Texas as "banana spiders" or "Garden Spiders", their scientific name is actually Golden Orb Weaver. The reason for this name is that their web (orb) is actually a very beautiful gold color! The color is hard to make out when viewing the web face-on, but if viewed from a sideways direction the color is unmistakeable.

Occasionally, some of these spiders decide to spin their webs right at face-level, so if you have a large yard and mow your grass with a lawn tractor, these weird animals can be quite a nuisance. I have never been bitten by one, but I have come close. I will relate a story:

I was about 14 years old, mowing our 5-acre lot of land. At that time, the land was bordered on all sides by a fenceline that was thick with small trees, bushes, and orb weavers. While in high gear mowing down this fenceline, I failed to notice the huge web in front of me, and knew the exact second the web caught me across the face. I instantly realized what I had travelled into and jumped off the tractor....I knew the spider was on me somewhere but wasn't sure exactly. I did a sort of wild dance, and the spider landed about 2 feet in front of me. So after pausing for a second to catch my breath, I spent a few minutes removing the web from my clothes and kept on mowing, but I wanted to go get my .22 rifle and shoot every one that I could.

My grandfather told me that a friend of his had been bitten once, and that his arm swelled up and caused a short-lasting but excruciating pain.