Photo by Dean Hesse
The female yellow garden spider has many admirable, intriguing traits:
“The writing spider” makes zigzag lines in her web. –Plot twists abound
She is clean. She remakes her interior web every day. –A born editor
She has an additional claw to spine her intricate webs. –A secret weapon
She is larger than the male. –A strong female protagonist
The male is brown, but she is yellow. –A colorful, exciting female
The male roams from female to female and seeks out the female by plucking at her web. –A musician, no doubt, and my antagonist
Many males die shortly after mating. –What can I say? A body needs to appear early on in a mystery.
The female eats the dead male. –Quirky, a little OCD
She is stable and stays in one place to reproduce. –Maternal instincts, or other likable traits are necessary for a heroine
Her presence is a sign the ecology is healthy in your yard. –She protects the other characters in the story.
She isn’t aggressive as a rule, but she will bite you if provoked. The human reaction to her poison is similar to a bee sting. –You’re going down if you commit the crime — no get-out-of-free jail card.