Green Lynx spider

Description:

The body of the female may be as much as 22 millimeters (0.87 in) long. The male is smaller, being slenderer and averaging 12 millimeters (0.47 in) in length. There often is a red patch between the eyes, with a few red spots on the body. The eye region is clothed with white appressed hairs. The dorsal surface of the abdomen bears about six Chevron-like marks with the centres pointing forward. The legs are green to yellow, bearing long black spines such as appear on the legs of most species of Oxyopidae, and with a generous scattering of black spots. Peucetia viridans is confusingly similar to Peucetia longipalpis, the other Peucetia species to occur in the United States, but Peucetia longipalpis tends to have a shorter, fatter, more domed abdomen, with less pronounced markings in its upper surface. Late in the season Peucetia viridans is prone to change its colour from predominantly green to paler yellow, typically with streaks of reddish, suggesting degradation of the tetrapyrrole pigment in the blood. Gravid females may change their color to fit their background. This takes about 16 days.Wikipedia.

Habitat:

Spotted on wildflowers near the Arkansas river. This is the female. The smaller spider is the male.

Notes:

The female constructs one to five 2-centimeter (0.8 in) egg sacs in September and October, each containing 25 to 600 bright orange eggs, which she guards, usually hanging upside down from a sac and attacking everything that comes near. Remarkably, one of her means of defense is to squirt venom from her chelicerae, sometimes for a distance of about a foot (300 mm).[2] The eggs hatch after about two weeks, and after another two weeks fully functional spiderlings emerge from the sac. They pass through eight instars to reach maturity.