The Banana Spider: Dangerous or Misunderstood?  

Heh they've got leg warmers

They have a habit of making their webs conveniently head level between trees 😂

You know? I'm a bit proud of myself from being a former arachnophobe to an arachnid admirer. That has an amazing color scheme to it. 😁

The Golden Orb Weaver was the first spider to fly to space! They are one, if not the top, most accurate hunters in the insect kingdom. It was taken to zero-gravity space to see how, or IF, it could adjust. After a just a bit of being a tad wobbly, it's beautiful web got even more accurate in angles and spacing, to the millimeter. Their strike and kill accuracy also improved beyond what had been documented on Earth. Cool stuff! Gorgeous gorgeous arachnids, hunters and architects. 😍

One of my favorite spiders to see growing up in south FL 🕷️🕸️

the male spider: "she's distracted. Now's my chance!"

I love how its using its pedipalps to crawl along your hand 😍

The Golden Silk is such a fascinating creature

Their fluffy legwarmers make that they are supercute instead of creepy! Gorgeous little beastie 😍

Wasn’t this the “paralyzing” spider they used in “lost” when the two robbers were skeeming and ended up getting bit and the rest of the island thought they were dead and they got buried alive lol

I love how she’s constantly using her pedipalps. Whilst she’s walking across your skin. Lovely little lady.

They get big

Golden orb weavers. Everywhere here in Florida, their silk really does look like gold in the morning dew.

I remember sharing a class with you at NCSU glad to see youve gone far

I like how it looks up at you like "hey dude you're gunna have to stop moving around so i can start my job"

Those spiders are everywhere in Williston,Florida and we did call them Banana spiders.

I saw one in the wild as a kid and I was literally paralyzed

I was in South Carolina at a friend's family reunion (I'm from Ohio) several years ago. As we were walking back to the car to leave, my attention was temporarily distracted talking to someone behind me and when i turned back around, my face was literally about a foot away from one of these sitting in the middle of a giant perfect spider web spun between two trees maybe 5 or 6 feet off the ground. It looked like something out of a horror movie to me because I thought these things only existed in the tropics. The craziest thing was how big each strand of the spider web was. The spider web looked like a fake movie prop because the strands were so big and they had a golden hue. I was fascinated and I went to research it and yes, I found out it was called a "Golden Orb Weaver". I'm only now finding out that they're not dangerous to humans, but they are definitely the scariest looking spider you will encounter in the US. The spider was bigger than the one in this video BTW. Thanks for sharing.

Something about how they're always resting their bodies on your hand unlike other spiders is cute.

Great summary on this spider!

My gf and friends are spooked out by these as they get pretty big with really long legs and the bright yellow colors they have. I guess its a normal reaction we human have embedded in our DNA over generations of trials and errors of our ancestors. So I understand how they feel cause i sometimes paralyze for a second when i see a snake in the grass or branches & it gives me the heebee-jeebees lol. I leave all spiders alone cause they do us so much good. But eventually I’ll have to clean up the cobwebs that the Silk Spiders make because it’s so huge and there’s so many of them in my back yard 😂 I live in Georgia & us southerners get alot of “wildlife”; insects, arachnids, marsupials (opossums) reptiles, mammals & birds large and small. I have a flowing creek in my backyard with pretty dense woods so I’ve learned to enjoy the circle of life no matter how small it is. There’s a few families of deer that roam around, we hear the owls at night and falcons in the day. I caught a glimpse of a couple blue heron cranes. We’re starting to see more & more wildlife come closer to my home because their habitat is being destroyed and the safest place for them is here. But We’ll get the occasional pack of coyotes too , which is crazy to me because i have never seen or even heard about them around until as of recently. Most likely because all the smaller animals are around now including the deers & I suppose it’s also because more people are moving here and there’s alot of development happening around us & theres nothing anyone can do about it. Its a curse & a blessing. & i don’t live in the country or rural side lol, i live in an underdeveloped suburbs but if you go a couple miles out, its a sprawling city. Thats Georgia for ya lol

Working for the parks and recreation in SA TX I came across a nest/web of those that was built over 2 porta-potties that were right next to each other. The web went from the ground, over the top and back to the ground, as if someone had thrown a huge net over both of the portables. There was HUNDREDS of those banana spiders in the web. I know they’re not poisonous. I still left. 😂 I’m just here to cut grass. 😂 Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I've always heard of them as orb weavers

My favorite spider ❤️ Except for jumping spiders

Nothing beats nearly having one in your face when you are running through the forest as a kid in Florida.

Another harmless spiders that gives me chills, this guy has balls of steel, I can't even pick up a cardinal any more, and they are as common as they come. I would not be going anywhere near that thing. Rule #1 of Nature, if it looks dangerous, it most probably is!

it looks like SpongeBob from the top

I didn't think i would miss north Carolina as much as i did after moving back to my home town in winter of 2021. I lived in central NC since fall of 2006, right before my 24th birthday. I don't miss the trash politics and I'm glad we always lived on base, as its pretty much lord of the flies for anyone not worth at least high 6 figures, but i miss the environment. It was so lovely and i appreciated how easy it was to garden. I live in vegas now and even tho i grew up here, it dosen't feel like home anymore. And i definitely can't garden.

Yeah man I love these spiders! I have an over abundance of egg cases this year so would share with anyone who might want some!

It's beautiful. Very cool 😎 ❤❤❤😊😊😊 love spiders ❤

Those are the biggest spider where I live next to wolf spiders and you got some balls holding that monstrosity

Fishing in Florida, my lure hung up on one of their webs. We have nothing like this up north! Beautiful creature.♥️🇨🇦

Very cool looking spider, no doubt.

I already got over my fear of spiders but when I saw that spider's mouth grazing over your skin, I had chills down my spine 😨🥶

I like to call those the “nope x3”

😊🙏 Thank You for more info like this ... Many learn to live in harmony with these scary looking but non-venomous Golden Orb Weaver spiders in their forest parks! 🌷🌿🌏✌💜🕊

Get near their eggs...you will experience fear

many are afraid of spiders, but I have discovered from my own house in the country that once they have painstakingly built their web, they do not move there for anything in the world. They are actually very useful in keeping flies and mosquitoes at bay.

They are so beautiful. I hope to hold one

I live in SC and get these guys from time to time. They're beautiful even though they trigger that primal arachnophobia in me, especially because they make their webs in the perfect spot for you to walk through without realizing. Idk how many times my face has come within inches of one of these handsome fellas

That's a male in the web with the giant female. The south calls them bananas spiders out of ignorance and visual likeness. I lived in Alabama for years and these Golden Silk Spiders are one of my favorites.

I’ve seen these on Jekyll Island, their webs are so pretty

We see a lot of these in the North Florida woods. They string their long webs across forest roads, which really "bugs" us motorcycle riders. Running into a web sucks. 😮

Spiders are one of my favorite animals. Ants are my number one.

Had one of these that lived next to the front porch when I was in middle school and living in SC. Wasn’t a fan of spiders then and would stay away from it, but they’re pretty cool.

They are absolutely spectacular!

First time I ever saw one of these was in person was in college. There was a forest next to our school with trails I would often walk down. One day I went for a walk and about ten minutes in a see something several hundred feet ahead, that looks like it's in the trees. I keep walking but it's obviously in the wrong position to be in the trees. I keep walking and whatever it is appears to be hovering in mid air, so I think maybe it's a hummingbird. Finally I get about 20ft from it and see it's a spider the size of my freaking hand that has built a web across the trail, and was just sitting in the middle of it, right at my head height. I didn't go back out there for a couple of weeks.

This one shows up in a gigantic form in the addictive "Earth Defense Force" video game series, hanging in its web and throwing web strands a really long way at you, almost like fishing lines. If one of the strands happens to catch you, it will slowly pull you in until it can start munching on you. EDF!

That spider is very pretty

Not dangerous to humans at all. They won't even bite unless forced to.

I was actually bitten by one and died a few years ago in Georgia. I can attest that they are, in fact, deadly to humans.

Always left them alone. They love all types of Flys and mosquitoes.

We call them banana spiders in Texas. Some of them are so big that you can see them up in their web from almost a hundred feet away up in the trees…

Fron what i heard they verry painful but not lethal. Spiders arent out bite you.

Funny how fear mongering works. I remember as a kind my Uncle telling me that spiders sometimes hitch rides from South America on Bananas and that they sometimes kill people. Got to love when one occurrence explodes into a legend…

We have them here in Miami FL and they're really cool looking

Skultulas, from Ocarina of Time

He doesn't have a nervous system, he has a confident system

Pretty yellow baby

We had Banana Spiders in Okinawa that were like face huggers.

What elegance!!

Those are beautiful. Love the colors

Fun fact this spider is called the electrical spider mostly by kids from philipines. 'Gagambang kuryente' Because their mostly on electrical wires from electric posts

I live in Northen Australia, these beautiful spiders come and go throughout the year. Probably the biggest one we had was by a very careful ruler measuremeant and some guesstimation, about 20cm across, she was massive. And her web was 2 meters from the front door under the roof overhang, so everytime you walk into the house, she would be chilling just off to the side.

So cool. Saw a different type of banana spider in Florida and would check them out every chance I could. They looked like Jimmy Hendrix designed them.

I love when they make the big white stripe on their web. They are basically saying, "Hey, I live here. Please don't walk face first into my home." Avoids a lot of bad times for both parties.

I'm lucky enough to live on 4 acres of wooded land with a creek running through it. Every year, I walk through the woods and see these beautiful animals and their magnificent webs stretching between the trees. The way the morning sunlight refracts and reflects off the dewdrops on every tiny strand of their web is truly something to see.

If you feed one on a regular basis, it begins to recognize you and crawls across it's web to greet you and take your treat. I've had one crawl across my face from accidentally walking through a web. If it's a narrow walking trail and it has tall enough vegetation to hang from, it'll be on your face too!

When I was a kid in North Carolina I ran head first into one. Scared me so bad thinking it was deadly with that vibrant color.

Its web has 8 times the tensile strength of steel and Kevlar.

She's a Female. If you look carefully at the end of the short, you'll see a Female Golden Silk Orb Weaver (large) and a Male one (small).

Even though I know these spiders are basically harmless, I still could never hold one! They give me the creeps and I’ve held tarantulas several times and even had one crawl on my face before, but you’ll probably never see me touch one of these.

THEY HAVE A VERY INTERESTING SHAPE..COOL

Thank you!

They are so beautiful. They eat bad bugs.

I hate spiders, in general. My first encounter with these spiders was when I lived in South Korea. Scared the crap out of me and they were bigger there. We would catch small grasshoppers and feed them. They got used to us doing that and would get closer to us waiting for the grasshoppers to get thrown into the web. Come to find out that they don't see humans as a threat and at least the females don't seem to fear people. We were able to hold the grasshoppers and they would take it from us. It was so cool. I live in North Georgia and we got them heavy a few years ago and people were losing their minds. My kids are getting used to them and I even showed them they would take small bugs from you. Showed them how they will walk off their web onto your hand if you hold it there. My daughter did it and the full panic look was on her face so I got it from her and put it back. We have seen them with purples and pinks within the yellow and even some metallic sheens. Beautiful spiders. They also eat the stinks bugs that have become an invasive species and are one of the few animals that will eat them which makes sense because they originate from the same areas in Asia.

Omg they are so preppy they have lag warmers

Very similar to Argiope Aurantia in so many ways. They look a lot alike, they are roughly same size, they are as dangerous as each other, and more. Beautiful creatures.

I had seen this in costa Rica it's beautiful but scary

It’s so cute that they have two tiny legs on their face almost

Really charismatic guy!

That's not a banana spider btw. What people call the "banana spider" is the brazilian wandering spider which is the boner-death one😭

I like how it is also using its fangs as legs to walk

Wow she is such a beautiful Spider

That's a pretty spider.

Such a beautiful spider,I love how she uses her pedipalps to help her walk. It’s just cute af.

These are all over here in Florida and so beautiful to look at

Beautiful critter. I would hold it.

When I was a child, I lived in South Carolina for a while, and I was taking a hike in the woods and ran through one of these webs. The damn thing crawled up my shorts leg, and bit me on the ass cheek it was horrible

Man we have another type of orb Weavers in my part of nc. We call them writing spiders, and I've seen quite a few bigger than that. Was told they write your name in their web if you smile at them as a child ha

she is so pretty! Her boyfriend deserves a shout out too, I love how spiders don't discriminate against the short kings

That spider is beautiful.

A lot of information in such a short vid well done

Funky little dudes. Very cool!

They're pretty and look like they have stylish black leg warmers.

Spiders can sometimes be cute

What a beautiful spider!

I used to see these a lot in central Florida. And the spikey crab spiders. I don't see either anymore

That is a stunningly gorgeous spider, what is it doing walking with its pedipalps? Its so sweet!

I hate spiders. But they way it walks with it's pedipalps is kinda adorable.