About Gasteracantha sanguinolenta C.L.Koch, 1844
Gasteracantha sanguinolenta C.L.Koch, 1844 is a species of spider in the family Araneidae, commonly called the short-wing kite spider. This species is found across the whole of Africa, and also lives in São Tomé, Yemen’s Socotra island, and the Seychelles. In South Africa, it occurs across a very large geographic range in eight out of nine of the country’s provinces, at altitudes from 6 meters to 1,556 meters above sea level. The eight provinces where it has been recorded are Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, and Western Cape. It can be found in numerous localities, including Addo Elephant National Park, Roodeplaatdam Nature Reserve, Kruger National Park, and Table Mountain National Park. Gasteracantha sanguinolenta is an orb-web spider that typically lives in warmer tropical regions. It constructs its orb webs high in trees or tall shrubs, above the height of an observer’s eye level. The bridge line of the web is often longer than the orb section of the web, which makes the spider appear to be floating in open space. Sometimes, the web is decorated with tufts of silk. These spiders are active during the daytime and do not remove their webs. The species has been sampled from all South African floral biomes, with the exception of the Nama and Succulent Karoo biomes.
