Decorative Silver Orb Spider

Found this mating pair of orb weavers hanging on a web yesterday.

They were mating for prolonged duration. After sometime the male would quickly move away from the female and rest there for a good few mins before returning to her. This would also happen when the wind picks up.

This continued for an hour or so until they both moved away from each other. They stayed in their positions for a couple of hours when the male finally decided to move away from the web.

In the back of my mind I was expecting the female to devour the male after mating. I had composed the image to photograph that event. But that didn't happen :-D

I found more than 10 mating pairs in a 10 m X 10 m area. Almost all of them were in the process of mating.

A mating picture of Linyphiidae Spiders is here along with some information on their mating process: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/13030520