Yellow Garden Spider Egg Sac

We’re still observing goldenrod galls from last month’s nature challenge and we came across this object. At first, we thought it was a gall, but we realized it was too light and papery for that. On doing a little research, I concluded it’s the egg sac of a yellow garden spider.

The yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia) usually attaches its egg sac to vegetation and the eggs hatch in late summer or fall. They remain dormant inside the egg sac until spring. We often see these large spiders in their webs around this area, so it would make sense to find an egg sac here.