Crab spider
Misumena vatia
Crab spider · The Cotswolds · 12 June 2025
A crab spider sitting motionless among the flowers in a Cotswold meadow in June, in no web at all. Misumena vatia lives on the flowers of meadows and hedgerows across Britain, Europe and North America, and hunts by ambush from the middle of a bloom.
White with a streak of red down each side of the abdomen. It can shift between white and yellow over a few days to match whatever flower it is sitting on; the colour change is real but too slow to watch happen. It takes bees far larger than itself, and the bite is quick enough that the bee is dead before it can sting.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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