{"id":114,"date":"2010-09-14T08:48:53","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T15:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=114"},"modified":"2010-12-26T15:45:59","modified_gmt":"2010-12-26T23:45:59","slug":"watching-crab-spiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=114","title":{"rendered":"Watching crab spiders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some years ago, while looking at a picture I took of a tiger lilly, I discovered that the flower sheltered a crab spider (Misumena vatia). Known variously as a flower spider, and a goldenrod spider, this tiny predator haunts flowers and pounces on the pollinators that visit. Now I watch for these tiny creatures, and find them mainly on daisies. The crab spider does not move around much. Once spotted on a flower, it usually can be seen at the same place on the same flower for days thereafter.<\/p>\n<p>The Kootenay-Lake\u00a0Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the\u00a0local <a href=\"http:\/\/kootenay-lake.ca\/bugs\/spiders\/index.html\">spiders<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As with my first discovery of a crab spider in a picture of a tiger lilly, I did not see the spider when I took this picture of a pieris japonica, so well did it blend in: &#8220;pay no attention to me; I am just one of the blossoms.&#8221;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-116\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/misumenavatia100514s.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/misumenavatia100514s.jpg 720w, https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/misumenavatia100514s-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The spider awaits a victim with open arms. This is a female.<span style=\"font-size: 13px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; line-height: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-118\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspider100623s.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspider100623s.jpg 720w, https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspider100623s-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>After the crab spider&#8217;s victim has been paralyzed with a venom, it can be consumed at the spider&#8217;s leisure.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-117\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/misumenavatia100603s.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/misumenavatia100603s.jpg 720w, https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/misumenavatia100603s-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The venom liquifies the internal contents of the victim which the spider then drinks.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-119\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspider100627s.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspider100627s.jpg 720w, https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspider100627s-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The male crab spider is much smaller than the female and so not easy to find early in the season. The pollen spread across the petals near the spider is evidence of earlier struggles.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-120\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspiderM100903s.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspiderM100903s.jpg 720w, https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/crabspiderM100903s-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some years ago, while looking at a picture I took of a tiger lilly, I discovered that the flower sheltered a crab spider (Misumena vatia). Known variously as a flower spider, and a goldenrod spider, this tiny predator haunts flowers &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=114\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}