What’s up with the markings on spiders?

Over and over the sun glinting off a web clues me in. Look closely, a tiny creature might be home! And so I move about, taking care to not disturb the web, looking for the spider. And when I find it, I’ll shoot a dozen frames trying to make sure I have the best angle, the sharpest focus possible.

Big spiders, like banana spiders, build huge orbs across wide trails. They’re pretty hard to miss. But tiny spiders? They are more discreet, their dinner-plate size webs more likely to be in thick stuff and hard to get close to.

But regardless of size, I am struck over and over again by the markings on their bodies. Egyptian hieroglyphs? Chinese brush strokes? I don’t yet have a spider decoder ring! I’m working on it, and online sites are available to help with identification, but, so far, none to help with decoding the awesome body art.

One #message is loud and clear: Divine love put them there.