Organisms In Our Garden - Crab spiders

Location 

It was sitting on a beautiful yellow rose, the sun was shining right at it. It was waiting for any type of insect smaller than it to come by.  

Video

What is it?

Thomisidae is the family of crab spiders, there are over 2,200 species of crab spiders, all very attractive. As you may know they are given the name 'crab spiders' because of their ability to move sideways or backwards. Crab spiders do not build webs to catch there prey. They use another method. They will find a nice flower to sit on, most likely there own color, but some species can change their color over a couple of days. So that there prey wont be able to see them. Then they will wait until some insect comes along and grab it, injecting its poison. Some also sit on tree trunks. Like most spiders they have eight eyes. The females are larger then males, like most animals. The crab spider is a diurnal animal which means it is active in the day. Crab spiders are not aggressive, sometimes they will bite if felt threatened, but it normally is non- harmful.
 

What do they eat?

Crab spiders will eat: caterpillars, butterflies, flies, bees, hover flies and loads more. Basically pretty much any insect! There favorite foods are butterflies, honeybees and flies.

  

What eats them?

Their main predators are wasps, ants, large spiders, lizards, birds and shrews.

Life cycle

Mating seasons usually take place in summer. Females will guard there eggs until they hatch, three weeks later. She does not eat during this time. Shortly after they hatch, the female will die of exhaustion.  Crab spiders can survive up to two years in the wild, depending on the species and the type of habitat (tropical species live longer)