Goldenrod crab spider
The goldenrod crab spider sits on flowers and waits for visitors. It is white or yellow, and it can slowly change colour to match its flower. Like a crab, it can walk sideways, and it holds its long front legs open, ready to grab.
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Fun facts
Changing from white to yellow is slow. It can take up to 25 days.
Sometimes, if it eats a brightly coloured insect, the spider itself takes on that colour.
The female is about twice as long as the male, which is at most 5 millimetres long.
Females leave a silk safety line behind them, and males follow it to find them.
On a yellow goldenrod flower it is so well hidden that even people searching for it can hardly see it.
Most asked questions about Goldenrod crab spider
?Why is it called a crab spider?
It can walk sideways like a crab, as well as forwards and backwards.
?How does it change colour?
It looks at its flower and slowly turns white or yellow to match it, which takes days.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Misumena vatia
- Named by
- Clerck, 1757
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Thomisidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Thomisidae
- Lives on
- Europe, North America
- Also known as
- Flower crab spider, Flower spider, Banana spider
Where the facts come from
- Misumena vatia (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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