Argiope bruennichi aka...scary looking spider...

...so Wikipedia says she is great for the garden and relatively harmless...

She definitely doesn't look harmless.  She is quite harmful to the men in her life though.  She eats them :)  They wait on the edges of her web until her jaw is weak from molting, then mate with her.  She sometimes ends up being strong enough to eat them anyway.  She's a feisty one!

I've seen several of these around our garden, or perhaps one is very very quick at moving around because they've been in the front and back yard spinning away. The web is really beautiful with a very white zigzag going down the middle (wikipedia says it strengthens the web).  You can see it in this photo...

She's just a little creepy, right?

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