Found this spider - help me ID please!

A shrieking coworker found this little guy sitting in an intricately designed web in our back room today. Most of my coworkers know I have tarantulas, so I was immediately called to take care of the "giant" spider that was discovered. He is maybe 1.25 inches or so.

I haven't seen this spider before so not really sure what it is. I went down to the food place across the street to get a plastic sauce cup and then got him into it without having to touch him. I felt bad breaking his web, which shows up faintly in some of the pictures. My husband dubbed him "Lugz Coleman" due to the boxes you can see him webbed to.

So what do I have here? Something common? I live in California if that helps with IDing. Sort of hoping he is a hitchhiker from one of the shoe manufacturers though.

Sorry the pictures aren't so great, they were taken with my phone. Most of the pictures I have are of his underside. The top of him is a shiny white with two thin brown lines going down his abdomen. His legs are very long and thin and are a light brown striped with a darker brown. He also has thin, spread out hairs that come off his legs - it almost looks like they come out in pairs.

If better pictures are needed I can try to get some. I'm interested in keeping him unless he is not likely to survive that, in which case I'll let him go (unless he is foreign and shouldn't be introduced outside).

Thank you in advance for helping me discover what Mr. Lugz Coleman might be!

Took a better picture of the top of him.

Maybe Argiope trifasciata or an Argiope argentata?

Biollantefan54 said:

Maybe Argiope trifasciata or an Argiope argentata?

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your reply! Yes, it does look to be a male Argiope trifasciata. I had a feeling it would end up just being a common garden spider. I read up on them and it looks like they are an annual species, so he wouldn't survive long with me. I was hoping he would maybe build his beautiful web again, but I don't think he likes his container. I am going to bring him to the pond I fish at in a couple of days and let him go. Hopefully he will enjoy the abundance of bugs and maybe even find a female that is not so closely related to him.

One thing I am excited for is that I went through the picture thread on true spiders while trying to figure out what he might be. I am now super wanting some! Guess that means I have some more research on my plate than I thought. :biggrin:

Came home from work to find he had created his signature web around the sticks I gave him. Super cool! Dropped a dubia nymph in who got stuck. Dubia played dead for a moment but once it started struggling Lugz Coleman was on him. I couldn't believe how quickly he subdued the nymph's legs with some webbing! He is still working on the nymph but I will post some new pics of the process tomorrow.

Alright. Got too busy to post this earlier (I also just hate uploading pictures for some reason. That's probably why I haven't started a photo thread yet). Again, I apologize for the quality, these were from my phone.

These first three photos are shortly after he initially grabbed it. You can tell he was spinning it around and on the last picture the bug looks white from the the web he tied around it.

And some more fun pictures of him eating, taken over several hours. Was neat seeing him bite around the bug in different places and sucking the juices out, leaving the bug largely intact. Much different than watching my tarantulas, that's for sure!

He looks pretty fat and happy in the last pic :biggrin: