bugs Black and Yellow monster

These beasts are all over rural Texas. I think they are quite common

elsewhere also, but even if youve seen one before they can scare the

hell out of you. They can get as big as dinner plates! Luckilly they

are apparently harmless to humans...

... is a wonderful garden spider. Your picture is rather unique from the common view. Usually they're captured on their "zippered" web, from which they get the nickname: "writing spider." This I guess you know since you say they are proliferous there in TX. Others around the globe may not be so familiar with them.

A couple weeks ago, I raised the shade over the kitchen door to an eye-poppin' surprise. There between the back door window and screen door was a fully grown Argiole. We did not disturb the "monster" and about 3 days later it was gone. I started out the back door only to find it had relocated below the half-way divider in the screen door.

Your light, saturation and colors are very nice. Cheers!

Thanks for the comment Certo! This guy was unique in a couple of ways. The reason he wasn't sitting on the "zipper" was because he recently snared a pretty big grass hopper. I'm not sure why he retreated to this position, but I guess the grasshopper wasn't going anywhere.

Another thing to note is I saw him on the first leg of an "out and back" hike. By the time I had returned he had a brand new web spun and the grass hopper was nowhere to be found. Pretty neat.

Oh, and regarding your picture that is a wild story. The spider actually spun that web in the ~3 inches of space between your doors? I wonder how he got in there. Anyway, thanks again for the comment.