Color-Changing Spider
11/05/09 - Pretty Cool
“Crab spiders can scuttle, but apparently they can’t hide. Long touted as an example of cryptic coloring, the female Misumena vatiaspider switches her body color over the course of days depending on the flower where she lurks. Contrary to the textbook scenario, though, a white spider on a white flower doesn’t catch more prey than a white spider moved to a yellow flower, researchers report online November 3 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B… The study “finally shatters the myth of crypsis by color matching in crab spiders,” comments behavioral ecologist Marie Herberstein of Macquarie University in Sydney, who was not part of the study. “I suspect that textbooks may now need to be rewritten.” w/ photos
