Signature spider

This Argiope luzona is a very young adult female. She measures just about 7 mm. long (excluding legs) and she has created a beautiful web decoration, in the shape of a cross. This decoration is called a Four-arm Discontinuous Cruciate Stabilimentum. Older, and therefore bigger, females make decorations which can have one, two, three, four or 5 arms and they can be continuous (crossing at the hub) or discontinuous (not crossing at the hub). So, if you are making daily observations of a larger female, you never know what you are going to see. However, smaller females like the one shown here, make only two arm or four arm stabilimenta, but when they reach the body length of 8 mm., they start making the complete range of decorations. Just looking at these spiders and their decorations is a great privilege.