Portrait of the beautiful spider "Macracantha hasselti" that I found in the papaya garden

Hello all my friends

Today I have several very interesting photos, namely photos of the spider "Macracantha hasselti" which I found in a papaya garden. As far as I know, this spider is also often referred to as the "flower spider" and I had no idea at all. the origin of the name, for me spiders are very unique and also really attract the attention of anyone, especially animal lovers because of their striking appearance, when I first saw them I couldn't help but feel amazed when I saw their body shape which was very different from other spiders generally.

Macracantha hasselti has a round (slightly oval) and large body shape with the back of its back equipped with sharp spines and makes it look scary, its body color is also very attractive, as you can see this spider has a body color that is dominated by bright yellow with black patterns, this striking color combination gives the impression that this spider is not an animal usually found in papaya gardens, but more like a creature from a different world 😃😃 and I feel very lucky to have found such a beautiful species Macracantha hasselti in my garden. 🥰🥰

in the papaya garden that I just planted at the beginning of 2025, it is usually only inhabited by frogs and weeds, I never thought I would find this spider there, usually the Macracantha hasselti spider can only be found in areas with lots of trees and insects are their main source of food, in this papaya garden, it seems that Macracantha hasselti is looking for shelter among papaya leaves and small twigs, I also noticed that this spider has a web that has the shape of which is irregular, and this is different from spiders which build their webs in a spiral shape.

I noticed that the uniqueness of Macracantha hasselti lies not only in its scary appearance but also in its interesting behavior. I saw Macracantha hasselti often sitting quietly in its web and it seemed like it was waiting for prey to pass by, maybe when the prey was trapped in their net, Macracantha hasselti would quick to prey on it, even though its size is not too big, Macracantha hasselti is quite agile in hunting, and it seems that this spider knows very well how to survive in papaya gardens where there are very few small insects as a source of the food.