The other day when I was watering our plants (we grow mainly vegetables for our own consumption and very few flowers), I noticed an odd looking spot on one the rudbeckias. When I looked closer, I realized that it looked like a yellow spider. It was camouflaged perfectly as it had yellow body with a pair of red stripes, exactly the color of the flower. Of course, I had to investigate.
Click on the image to see better how well the goldenrod crab spider is camouflaged - it has the same body color (yellow) and red stripes as the rudbeckia petals have. |
I watched the spider for the next few days, and snapped two different pictures of the prey it caught.
First the spider caught a small fly. |
The next day I saw it ingesting a large fly, which was actually as large as the spider itself. |
The spider sat on the same flower for at least three days, and then moved to the next one. Today it was gone. In a strange way I am going to miss it.
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