The common candy-striped spider

 (Enoplognatha ovata - ovata morph)

This spider is endemic to Europe, but it has been unintentionally transplanted to North America.  It originally settled on the east and west coasts somewhere around 1900 and, in 125 years, has managed to populate almost every state and province.  

There are three varieties or morphs of the candy-striped spider.  The one I photographed above is the ovata morph, which possesses a broad red stripe across the abdomen.  The rest of the abdomen varies from cream to yellow in colour.  It is the least common of the three.  The redimita is similar, except instead of the the single, broad stripe, two thinner stripes parted by the midline are present.  The third variation has a pale green/yellow abdomen with dark spots present.

Many spiders have a bit of red on them and are not terribly poisonous.  The candy-striped spider belongs in this category; its bite is mildly annoying at the most, unless you are allergic to it.  

The candy-striped spider has interesting predatory behaviour.  It uses a variety of techniques to acquire food.  It will openly stalk sleeping insects, not waiting for them to fall into their trap or unveil their presence through movement, but rather to come upon a motionless potential victim and suddenly attack it.  It also will steal prey from other spiders' webs, and has been known to string one of its own silky strands onto another spider's web to indicate when an insect has been caught.

I photographed this with my D7100, 105 mm Nikkor macro lens, and the Nikon SB200 macro lighting pack.  You don't need a high-end camera to use macro equipment, it's the lens and flash that make up most of the difference.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com