Ethan Placke, a Houston Parks Board conservation technician, shares tidbits on these not-so-scary, beautiful spiders. He writes:
“Those who frequent the beautiful parks and greenway spaces across Houston may already be familiar with this beautiful arachnid. Our trails are the ideal spots for them to build their homes.
They may look big and scary, and that’s probably on purpose, so would-be predators stay away from them. Rest assured, though, that these big, beautiful spiders are of no threat to us. The worst that can happen is walking through one of their surprisingly strong webs, made of a gorgeous silk that looks like spun gold in the sunlight.
Almost every one of these spiders that one would see are females. The females are three to four times larger than the males, who will sneak around from web to web, waiting for a mating opportunity. This opportunity usually occurs when the female is eating, as they have a habit of eating their male mates if they’re hungry!”
