A little help?

[luciamx]

hi this might sound like a silly question but i have had a spider living on my door for a while now and recentl i think it found a mate. i'd like to know what species they are and how long they live because we have become quite attached to these little guys.
spider 1. i think is the female about 6-10 mm by abdomen brown in colour with yellow markings on the back.
spider 2. which i think is male is about 3-7 mm much smaller and with same colour and similer markings i would like to more about the species if possible.

[Action_Man]

Hi and welcome to the WAB forums.

It could be Zygiella x-notata.

Does the spider have a little hidey hole at the top of its web ?, and is there a small section of its web missing ? ...

[luciamx]

yes acctualy it does originaly we thorght the smaller one had wrapped the other up for food but we noticed her move since the they have been all touchy lol. they also have yellow stripes on their legs?

[luciamx]

although the web is in our door frame it looks nothing like the webs shown, also the markings are diffrent and the colour to the species shown. the web has a small sack in the corner the lager one is always in but there is not much more web than that. its seems a very messy web.

[Action_Man]

Look at images of Araneus diadematus, the male usually offers the female a food item before mating.

These have quite a well structured web though ...

[luciamx]

strangly i just said to my mother i thourght the smaller one was offering food to the larger one currently resting on top in the little nest that species does look alot like it just found a picture of the male and female together url: http://www.ivory.org/spiders/araneus.diadematus-2.jpg
although their web is still a bit of a mess this must be it. the markings are a bit diffrent but the pictures are much closer than i can get thank you.
just woundering because we like these spider and they are like our pets does the female eat the male after mating?

[Action_Man]

I think that is a possibility yes, the reason he gives the her the prey item is to keep her occupied whilst he does the deed.

Regarding the messy web, i think they can look a little dishevelled during the day, and i think they reconstruct it during the evening ...

[UB4 gardener]

ah.. so that's where the males in my garden are going wrong. I have a female i can see from the lounge and i know of at least 5 males she has wrapped up for dinner. each of them taking at least an hour to-ing and fro-ing and plucking the silk. it has been interesting to watch.

Chris