White Crab Spider (Misumena vatia)

This is a very small spider but what it lacks in size it makes up for in cunning and courage!

Although the 'white' crab spider it can also be cream, yellow (as the one in the photograph is) or tinged with green. It then chooses a flower of a matching colour and sits on the petal so it can hardly be seen by the human eye, and certainly not by the flying insect eye. An unsuspecting insect flies in to the flower to collect the nectar or pollen and that's it, the spider pounces.

It can tackle quite big prey which it stuns with its digestive juices and then it just sits and dissolves it prey. No sticky web for this spider,

It is thought that this spider an actually change colour to match the plant it is on although I am not sure this has been totally proven yet.