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Comments & ID Thoughts
I haven't zoomed in on this photo.
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Jun 14, 2019
- Photographed: Jun 14, 2019
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Yunguilla Valley 60k from Cuenca, Ecuador
- Spotted Outdoors: Low foliage (shrubs, herbs, garden, excluding flowers)
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
By not zooming in you can see the tomato flowers around it & how well it blends in. Beautiful isn’t it. It doesn’t jump. In one of the first photos I took of it I actually held up the leaf to get a better shot, it didn’t jump on to me, luckily. It doesn’t move very far, I would say it only moves when a flower dies then it moves to a fresh one that will invite bees.
Thank you for not using digital zoom. This is a crab spider that preys on insects that visit flowers. They are also called Flower Spiders. Some of these spiders can change their colors to match the plants so the insects don’t see them. This one did very well matching the tomato flowers and stems with its colors. It has prey in the photo. They grab the insects’ heads to avoid being stung. It is interesting that the spider knows when to change to a new flower. I don’t know which species it is.
Thankyou TangledWeb it’s great to have the spider identified. I looked at pics of Misumenoides formosipes & it certainly looks like & behaves like that. Not sure if any recorded spiders of that species here in Ecuador. Maybe this one came in in a container from up North.