Black Wood Spider

Nephila kuhli

Nephila kuhli is an orb weaving spider found from tropical India through SE Asia to north Australia.
Nephila kuhli I found the perfect Halloween costume!

I suppose the spider should come with a trigger warning. This is Ms Nephila Kuhlii aka the black wood spider. It's an orb weaver. This one was easily 7 inches. The poor males are much smaller. Reportedly its poison does not affect humans much. (I did not try it.) Bangalore,Bengaluru,Black Wood Spider,Fall,Geotagged,India,Nephila kuhli,orbweaver spider

Appearance

Size: Female: 50-60 mm; Male: 5-6 mm.
The cephalothorax is thin and flat with the cephalus raised. At the rear of the cephalus, there are two short horn-like projections. The abdomen is long, rounded, widest and truncated in the front, narrowing gradually to a rounded posterior. The abdomen covers pedicel and spinnerets. The legs are very long and red in colour. The front legs are about twice as long as the spider, thin, brittle and swollen at the joints. There is a longitudinal row of short spines on the femora. Carapace and abdomen is black in colour. The male is reddish brown in colour and hangs on the edge of the web and is very smaller than the female.
Black Wood Spider, Nephila Kuhlii  Black Wood Spider,Geotagged,Indonesia,Nephila kuhlii,Spring

Distribution

India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, China, Japan, Northern Australia.
Black Wood Spider, Nephila Kuhlii  Black Wood Spider,Geotagged,Indonesia,Nephila kuhlii,Summer

Habitat

Primary and secondary forests, wasteland and gardens.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

http://eol.org/pages/1193399/overview
http://www.southindianspiders.org/south-indian-spiders3.htm
Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassArachnida
OrderAraneae
FamilyNephilidae
GenusNephila
SpeciesNephila kuhli