Immature Crab Spider – Yellow and Red

2014 November 26

Sam caught this little crab spider in our house on January 3, 2014, the same day as I brought home the immature spider that I posted last time. This one also had a body only about 3 mm long.

Those four big front legs are for grabbing prey. When the spider is startled, it scrunches up into a little ball.

The eyes are small, and spread out into an arc across the face, as is typical for crab spiders.

In general, trying to identify immature spiders to species is a mug’s game. But, based on the pale base color and the two reddish stripes on the abdomen, this could very well be the extremely common Goldenrod Crab Spider, Misumena vatia. I already know that they overwinter as spiderlings, because we once caught one that hatched out some eggs on September 1.

So, anyway, since we found it in the house and, in January, it really had nowhere else to go, we put this one onto the potted plants in the window, too.

One Response
  1. June 16, 2019

    Great colors.
    Maybe Mecaphesa asperata?

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