Misumena vatia

[Rain_Flower]

I waaaaant sooooooome. I saw one of these during the summer but was never able to figure out what they where called. I loove them.

How do you keep these? Info and pics are welcome :)

And where can I get them?

[Rain_Flower]

62 views and no one knows? Saaaaad.
I'm bumping my own thread.
Bump.

[cacoseraph]

i kept a similarish genera of local crab spider in a small container with no substrate and a piece of bark for it to perch and hunt from. it ate very small crickets with no problem. i think i maybe had Xysticus sp. or something like that


edit:

it would be intersting to give the vatia a variety of objects to post up on and see if you can find any preferences. like color or texture or maybe it prefers genuince flowers from your yard... or maybe it just goes where the bugs are. this *might* be a sp that can shift colors but i don't remember for sure

[Rain_Flower]

Yeah I don't know about the color thing either. My fav is the pink and white though. I don't know anyone who is breeding them, so I guess I'm just gonna go spider huntin!

Thanks for your reply. :)

[Shannon]

Acccording to the literature, M. vatia is one of the crab spiders that can change color, mostly whites and yellows. Google Scholar has lots of scientific articles on M. vatia if you are interested. It is one of the most commonly studied crab spiders.

Cacoseraph's comments about looking for preferences were very timely for me. I'm a grad student in Kentucky and last weekend I started a small research project looking for possible color preferences in male crab spiders. I have 4 that I'm keeping now for my research and will be collecting more in the next couple of weeks. I think the genus I'm catching is Misumenops. I'll probably end up posting a picture later to see if someone can help me get a definite id. (I'm just starting to learn my spiders.)

[problemchildx]

I saw the one with the untimely nematodes on here..

But it is one of the most beautiful true spiders, I want one too! No idea where they would be even if I thought I could find them around here {D

Let me know if you find more info

[Stefan Sollfors]

I have only found yellow and white females. I think this is a very cool spider. They can be hard to spot when they sit in a flower with the same colour as the spider.
Some photos: http://www.eurospiders.com/Misumena_vatia.htm

[Rain_Flower]

They are very pretty spiders. I find them around here sittin on flowers every once in awhile. Haven't seen any lately though.

[cacoseraph]

another cool thing about this type of crab spider is that they all have very small fangs, relative to their body size. it is a fact of possible use when "rehabilitating" arachnophobes ;)

[problemchildx]

You've seen one in Oregon? Wow what time of the year?

This would be a great true spider to have.

[Rain_Flower]

You've seen one in Oregon? Wow what time of the year?

This would be a great true spider to have.

I saw one this past summer when I was at work in a native plant nursery. I had never seen one before and was absolutely fascinated by it. I actually didn't even know it was a spider at first, I just saw this white and pink ball. It was awesome. I called my "boss" (she wasn't really my boss, she just lived there in the nursery) over to see it and she had never seen it before and thought it was really cool. I wanted to take it home with me...

I also saw a giant salamander there, but this about spiders, not salamanders :D