Green spiders

One can understand how the cucumber green spider got its name. It’s a powerfully built, fairly large spider with a yellow-brown head and thorax and a radiant green abdomen that looks like a large pea. It is closely related to the common garden spider but prefers to spin its, quite small, webs between the leaves of bushes or down between the flowers on the forest floor. You will usually spot the spider sitting on the back side of its web with its head pointing downwards, whilst it waits for something to be caught in its trap. Very young cucumber green spiders can be totally red, so you sometimes need to be a bit careful identifying them.

The very young spiders usually spin a small web that covers a single leaf, while the larger spiders can spin a web the size of your hand.

If you look closely at the younger cucumber green spiders, you’ll quickly notice that some of them seem to be giving a lift to a small, bright larva, usually sitting on the neck of the young spiders, just in front of the abdomen. It is the larva of a parasitic wasp, which is slowly and calmly eating the spider alive.