The Regeneration of Legs!

[wilippa]

A thought or two on the fascination of spiders!
On my potted lavender plant (situated on my garden decking) there lives a small black and white spider. (Sorry, my camera's not good enough for a photograph but if anyone wants to try and ID - its body length is approx 3-4mm with black underside to its carapace and abdomen, white patterning on the upper abdomen and translucent grey legs.)
Anyway, for some weeks I have watched him hang upside down from his horizontal tangle web and noticed that his was missing two legs on one side (the top section of each leg was still present but no functionality was there). The other day I went to visit my little friend and found that he was now eight-legged once more! A brief examination of his web revealed his recently shed skin, complete with visibly broken legs. This is what I love about these little guys!

[Geoff F]

Presumably, it was a juvenile when you first saw it. As far as I am aware, adults do not replace lost limbs after their final moult.

And for identification; have a look at Zygiella x-notata first.

[John_M]

They will only replace limbs when they moult, as you say; if it was on a horizontal tangle web, then it won't be Zygiella, as they make vertical orb webs, with a missing sector. I wouldn't like to hazard an ID, though.

[wilippa]

A postscript on this one. I went out to find my little friend on Tuesday evening and found he had gone. Then yesterday, wandering around the rest of the garden I found a "colony" of these spiders. Within an area of vegetation less than a square metre I counted 12 (before I lost count) all the same, hanging below their webs ("sheet" is more accurate I think than "tangle"). I had already found something online about spiders that live together that fit the description but wasn't able to find it again. The closest I've got is a genus - Cyrtophora. Anyone know which Cyrtophora species are common in England and therefore likely to be my colony?