Adult female Wasp Spider © Matt HampsonSpecies Focus - Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi)
It’s unusual to be promoting a species that hasn’t been recorded in North Wales yet. However, with a recent English record near Chester in late July, it seems timely to bring the Wasp Spider to people’s attention. Who knows, you might be the first person to find one in the Cofnod area!
Argiope bruennichi is a large (4 cm leg-span), distinctive, orb-web spider. The female’s black and yellow markings make it easy to identify, but surprisingly difficult to spot as it tends to build its web low down between clumps of thick grass. They sit out in the middle of their web, which is decorated with a silvery silken cross called a stabilimentum.
Wasp Spiders are mature in late summer and autumn, so now is the very best time to go out looking for them. The female constructs a distinctive urn-shaped egg-sac that looks remarkably like an old Poppy seedhead.
In North Wales this species is highly likely to turn up first on the rough coastal grassland of Flintshire. It would also be worth keeping an eye out for it along the Merionethshire coast, since the species’ distribution has been expanding rapidly in South Wales within the last few years.
More information on Wasp Spiders can be found here. Please submit your records, ideally with photos, to the Cofnod ORS or the LERC Wales App.
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