Colorful spider: id needed

[Bhargava Srivari]

Shot this spider in the vikarabad/anantagiri forest area which is about 80km from hyderabad.

We actually went there in search of birds, but came back with pictures of a few spiders which I have never seen before :)

Will appreciate any information regarding this spider :) I'm counting on Abhishek for some interesting info :P

canon 60D, canon 100-400 L IS USM
f5.6, 1/60sec, ISO 640, EV 0, 400mm, eval metering, full frame, handheld.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Wish for more depth of field, however the light is less. If I am not wrong, these are Giant Wood spiders.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Sabyasachi is right, it's a Giant Wood Spider Nephila pilipes female (the males are tiny, barely about half a cm long). These spiders build gigantic webs, commonly reaching 2m in diameter. If you watch them for a while, you will notice an interesting behaviour- if any non-prey object (such as a falling leaf) gets caught in the web, the spider removes that part of the web and rebuilds it. You can find the males near the periphery of the web.
Do you have any dorsal shots? I have noticed that specimens of this species in the south have more white on the body than yellow (?)
TFS

[Bhargava Srivari]

thanks Abhishek. I do not have dorsal shots. I had spent just a couple of min with this spider as the light was very low. However, I may go back to this place as early as next weekend and will surely try to practice photography on some spiders :D