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Crab Spider

Thomisidae

Description:

Crab spider is a common name applied loosely to many species of spiders, but most nearly consistently to members of the family Thomisidae. Among the Thomisidae it refers most often to the familiar species of "flower crab spiders", though not all members of the family are limited to ambush hunting in flowers. None of the crab spiders mentioned build webs to trap prey, though all of them produce silk for drop lines and sundry reproductive purposes; some are wandering hunters and the most widely known are ambush predators. This species sit on or beside flowers or fruit, where they grab visiting insects.

Notes:

This little spider on a bougainvillea flower is smaller than my little finger nail

1 Species ID Suggestions

DeniseT
DeniseT 12 years ago
Crab Spider
Thomisidae Crab spider


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6 Comments

pamsai
pamsai 12 years ago

thanks S Frazier for the correction, and Argybee for your comment...

Scott Frazier
Scott Frazier 12 years ago

Moved to the group Arthropods :-)

Mark Ridgway
Mark Ridgway 12 years ago

I like the colours pamsai.

pamsai
pamsai 12 years ago

My guess is this one is a female. Anyone have a way of telling?

pamsai
pamsai 12 years ago

@ Dennis T. Yes, the same little one! My internet went down in the middle of uploading the spottings, but the others are up now. This one also fell off a franjapani [plumeria] flower!

DeniseT
DeniseT 12 years ago

I just added a photo of a crab spider similar to yours. :)

http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/945...

pamsai
Spotted by
pamsai

Tamil Nadu, India

Spotted on Mar 14, 2012
Submitted on Mar 14, 2012

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