Macro and Flora Image of the Week for the week ending October 5th, 2012: Jerry van Dijk - Hanging by a thread

Congratulations Jerry!

Hi all, it has been ages since I had the chance to post something here in macro. Work is very busy and I'm still sorting out my 1500+ images from my trip to Western Australia. This is one of them. I think this is a Golden orbweaver (Nephila edulis), hence the golden thread of the web. We met this girl hanging in her web on the side of the footpath. My 8 year old son wasn't paying attention and accidentally walked into the web. Luckily for me (and him) it ran of along one of the vertical threads supporting the web, giving me a nice photo opp and my son a lucky break. This spider was the size of my hand and I've seen pictures on the web of it eating a bird :eek3:. Does anyone know where the scientific name comes from? Edulis is usually used for edible species....

D7000, Nikkor 200mm f/4D ED-IF AF Micro, handheld, ISO-320, f/6.3, 1/1600 sec, +0.3 EV.
Minor PP work in ACR6.7/CS5: cropped for composition, sharpening, vibrance, levels, S/H to bring out the details in the jaws.

Thank you very much for this honour! It is greatly appreciated!