In 1914, Friedrich Dahl noted specimens from Manila, Luzon, and Samar in the Natural History Museum, Berlin collection.

[2] Female G. hecata orb-weavers have hard, shiny yellow-and-black abdomens that are about twice as wide as long and armed with two pairs of spines.

[1] Charles Athanase Walckenaer described this species (in 1841, as Plectana hecata) based on drawings and notes found in James Petiver's early 18th-century Gazophylacium naturae et artis.

[3] Petiver himself had based his work on designs sent to him from Luzon by Czech Jesuit and naturalist Georg Joseph Kamel.

[5] In 1844, Carl Ludwig Koch described and illustrated a species he called Gasteracantha falcifera from a single specimen housed at the natural history museum in Berlin.