White crab spider
The white crab spider is a small white or yellow spider that sits very still inside flowers. Its strong front legs stick out to the sides like a crab's claws. Across its face it has a white band with tiny black eyes that looks like a little mask.
How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is White crab spider compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It can change its colour from yellow to white to match the flower it is hiding in.
It does not spin a web. It waits in a flower and grabs bees and butterflies with its front legs.
Its body shines in ultraviolet light, a colour that bees can see and we cannot. This makes bees fly right up to its flower.
With its legs spread out it is about 3 centimetres across.
The mother lays 200 to 370 cream coloured eggs inside a folded leaf.
Most asked questions about White crab spider
?Why is it called a crab spider?
Its strong front legs stick out to the sides like a crab's, and it can scuttle sideways.
?Does the white crab spider make a web?
No. It hides in flowers and ambushes insects that come to drink nectar.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Thomisus spectabilis
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Thomisidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Thomisidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania, Asia
- Also known as
- Australian crab spider
Where the facts come from
- Thomisus spectabilis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Graham Wise from Brisbane, Australia. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
European garden spider
Goliath birdeater
Brown recluse
Redback spider
Yellow garden spider
Bold jumping spider
Sycamore moth
Greyback cane beetle
Garden chafer
Beet armyworm
Green dock beetle
Moss carder bee.jpg){kind=link}