Bowl and Doily Spider
Frontinella communis
Family Linyphiidae

Characteristics:
* Abdomen longer than it is wide.
* White pattern on dark abdomen.
* Jaws have many teeth.
* Both male and female spiders hang upside down on the web and run rapidly when disturbed.
* Body length: About 1/5".

Natural History:
* Habitat: Shrubs, such as highbush blueberry.
* Range: Eastern and central United States and Canada.
* Behavior: Bowl and doily spiders are aptly named - their webs are shaped like bowls and covered by a delicate, doily-like interlacing of threads. Insects fly into the doily and the spider, which lives between the doily and the bowl, pulls its prey down to the bowl and wraps it for future use.
* Native.

Connections!
* Naturalist Donald Stokes has described the bowl and doily web as "...one of the most spectacular feats of engineering in the natural world...It will look like either a small circus net, the kind that is suspended under aerial acrobats, or a gossamer bowl about five inches in diameter."