Come Here & Let Me Give You a Hug!

A female goldenrod crab spider lies in wait on the underside of an aster blossom

Don’t do it, ye bees and butterflies of the world, for in her inviting arms awaits a deadly embrace! The front two pairs of legs of the goldenrod crab spider like this large female are much longer than the back, as she doesn’t spin a web to catch her prey but rather waits for them to land on her flower, embraces and immobilizes them with a venomous bite, then sucks the fluids from their bodies. While they often hold out all four long legs to grab their prey, In this particular case she’s using two of her long legs to gain extra purchase on the petals of the aster and holds out only her two frontmost legs. From the front of the flower she was invisible save for two tiny feet sticking around the edge of the petals.

Defender of the Pollen

A goldenrod crab spider sits below a clump of pollen on a purple coneflower

After a much-needed summer shower, I grabbed my macro lens to take some pictures of rain drops on the flowers in our garden and was amused by this little crab spider seemingly defending the last remaining clump of pollen on one of our purple coneflowers. Her life is actually tied to the pollen, as she is lying in wait for a pollinator like a bee to land on the flower so she can kill and eat it.