13 Tuesday Aug 2024
Tags
British butterflies, British spiders, Crab spider, crab spider kills Speckled wood, Speckled wood, White crab spider
Me: ‘What on earth is that Speckled wood doing?’
Speckled wood: ‘ . . . ‘
Crab spider: ‘Yum! Lunch!’
06 Tuesday Jun 2023
This Crab spider seems to have decided not to bother with camouflage as it sits on this gorgeous Japanese rose flower, or perhaps it can’t manage to colour itself bright pink.
26 Wednesday Apr 2023
Posted in spiders
I don’t know whether it’s the time of year or the weather conditions but I’m seeing quite a lot of Flower crab spiders (Misumena vatia), mostly white so presumably male – the females, according to the Wildlife Trust website, are not able to change their colour to match their surroundings.
I was rather tempted to make this blog’s title a pun on their having eight eyes (‘Aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye’, or ‘The eyes have it’) but resisted – though, as you see, I still couldn’t help but mention them. Just imagine what it must be like to have so many eyes – what do they see?
In an attempt to photograph all those eyes, I managed to get quite close to one particular beastie but quickly backed off when it began to open its legs – they are not the open arms of welcome, but rather the snatch of death!
30 Saturday Apr 2022
Posted in insects, wildflowers
Tags
British butterflies, British spiders, butterfly, Crab spider, Crab spider kills Orange-tip, Cuckoo flower, Orange-tip, Orange-tip male, Orange-tip on Cuckoo flower
Sometimes I can be a bit slow. During today’s walk, I was ambling along the edge of a meadow when I spotted a male Orange-tip butterfly flitting from one small patch of Cuckoo flower to the next. Then it stopped at one spot longer than usual so I walked quickly over to get some photos. I could see its tongue was out so knew it was feeding but, still, I was amazed at how long it was staying put on the one flower. And then I saw why …
The poor butterfly had been grabbed by a lurking, very well camouflaged Crab spider.
14 Saturday Aug 2021
I was watching this well-camouflaged Crab spider (probably Misumena vatia) restraining its prey when a mother and young son came walking along the path towards me. I could see and hear that the woman was pointing out various flowers and insects to her son so, rather than immediately step out of their way, I asked the boy if he wanted to see something cool. I pointed to where he should look and moved away a little, still conscious of maintaining a Covid-safe distance.
He was spellbound as I explained that the spider had been sitting on a white flower so it could use its white colour to trap the fly. He thought the spider was ‘sneaky’, and I could hear him and his mother still talking about the spider and ‘amazing Nature’ as they walked on. Well done to his mum for encouraging the boy’s interest. I think it’s so important that young people are inspired to look closer at the amazing natural world that surrounds them.
24 Monday Apr 2017
Tags
Barry, Crab spider, Dock bug, Garden snails, Glamorgan Botany Group, Grene shieldbug, hoverflies, insects, ladybirds, Orange-tip butterfly, slow-worm
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I spent a wonderful day on Saturday exploring and examining some of the town of Barry’s wilder green spaces with members of the Glamorgan Botany Group. But, of course, you can’t spend a whole day looking at plants without also seeing an awful lot of the critters that live on those plants and I admit to being a trifle distracted at times … by a sunshine-yellow Crab spider, by fluttering butterflies and buzzing hoverflies, by plentiful dock and shield bugs, by the sad sight of a dead Slow-worm. Some of the lovely old stone houses and churches we passed were pretty cool too!
23 Tuesday Aug 2016
Tags
Bindweed flower, camouflage, Crab spider, Eupeodes corollae, hoverfly, insect camouflage, Misumena vatia, sawfly larve
On the positive side … this Sawfly larva has its colour co-ordination working very well, though maybe needs to work on its choreography.
On the negative side … or positive side, depending on whether you’re identifying with the Crab spider (probably Misumena vatia) using the large white Bindweed flower as its lair, or the spider’s victim, a hoverfly (probably Eupeodes corollae).
earthstar 
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