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Discoveries: Flower Crab Spiders

Once upon a time, while having some amazing Zion National Park rocks to look at, I took a moment to observe the flowers. There was one quite pretty penstemon getting pollinated by a bee. Except there was something wrong. The whole of the scene was very very still. The bee hung in front of the flower without so much as a wing flap. Where was physics? The natural laws were not being obeyed.

bee hanging before a flower
A frozen tableau in Zion.

I looked closer and found I wasn't seeing all of the bee. At first I saw something like two fangs and the negative space resolved itself into a large spider. The integrity of physics was restored, but flowers had just become very dangerous places.

The things you find when out and about! But it does make a bit of sense. You hear that watering holes are one of the most dangerous places for wandering animals. This would just be the bee equivalent. I then returned home to those nice, safe flowers I'd known.

A very familiar blue-dick hosting danger.
ghost spider
Spider number two on the same day!

Two of them in a single day! Redrock Mountain is a surprisingly wild place, but they showed up again and again, getting even closer to home. There's just no getting away from it, flowers are dangerous.

One common type of these spiders is Misumena vatia, the goldenrod crab spider. It has a fairly extensive Wikipedia article. I'm not certain that these particular spiders are this species. It mentions they have quite good eyes and these were all aware of me looking at them, but spiders do generally have good eyes. It states they are most commonly yellow, but they change colors to match the flowers they are on. The ones I have found are almost all white, but I have seen a couple yellow ones. None of them were on goldenrods, so that's something to continue to look out for.

bright yellow spider
The first of the yellow flower crab spiders. Found along Matias Trail.

More recently, I found another tableau that has me confused.

spider perhaps attacking spider attacking bee
So, what goes on? Reproduction or attack? Found at Stagecoach Hill.

Note: all these spiders and more are posted to iNaturalist.

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