Black And Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) & Egg Cases

October 4th, 2014. This Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) set up ‘house’ on a sunny, southwest-facing window pane on the house where she appears to have thrived.

Her web is in the lower left-hand pane. 

She has kept the web repaired. This image was captured on October 4^th. 

Now, late in the season, the web has undergone some wear and tear. 

In early October, I was a little surprised to see an egg case in the upper left-hand corner of this pane followed by another in the upper left-hand corner of the upper left pane. 

Now she has a third egg case located next to the second egg case.  These egg cases are in a shaded, less exposed location compared with the first egg case.

According to the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan, this species breeds once and may produce one or more, although rarely 4, egg cases each containing 300 to 1400 eggs. In areas with cold winters, the eggs may hatch in the late Summer or Fall and the young remain dormant until Spring.

It will be interesting to see if we can observe the young as they start the next generation of this intriguing spider.