Milky flower spider
The milky flower spider is a creamy white crab spider with thin brownish red lines. It sits very still on white flowers, where it is almost impossible to see. When an insect lands on the flower, it grabs it.
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Fun facts
Its creamy white colour matches white flowers, so insects do not notice it waiting there.
The female is about 6.5 millimetres long, more than twice as long as the male.
It is the only kind of spider in its group. No other spider is its very closest relative.
It also lives on Lord Howe Island, a small island far out in the sea off Australia.
Most asked questions about Milky flower spider
?How does the milky flower spider catch food?
It sits still on a white flower, hidden by its colour, and grabs insects that come close.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Zygometis xanthogaster
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Thomisidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Thomisidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- White flower spider
Where the facts come from
- Zygometis (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 https://www.flickr.com/photos/patrick_k59/. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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