These spiders fall into the category of ‘Identification by Rarity’. There are five species of Araniella in Great Britain, but three of them are rare and have a very scattered and local distribution (*). The other two are common and hard to tell apart in the field, these are A.cucurbitina and A.opisthographa. We now believe we have both species present in the garden. The only way to really tell them apart is by close examination, however there is one obvious external characteristic that can help separate them, if you can see it.
Araniella cucurbitina when viewed from beneath has a red patch just behind the spinnerets as shown in the photographs below. This is missing from A. opisthographa.
We were not sure if we had A. opisthographa until we filmed the interesting fight below between a Cucumber Spider and what we believe to be a male Gasteruption jaculator. It turned out to be less of a fight and more of a hopeless struggle in the end for the wasp, which had become stuck in the spiders web by one of its antenna. However if you pause at around 17 seconds in you can see the spider lacks the red patch of Araniella cucurbitina.
The spiderlings are a red/brown colour but we are yet to record one in the garden. Below is a nice specimen feeling the impacts of the strong breeze, recorded on 5th July 2023.
Wildlife Garden 