Wildlife
Crab spiders don't build webs to catch their prey. Instead, they rely on camouflage and ambush. These colourful spiders blend into their surroundings amongst leaves and flowers, where they lie in wait for unsuspecting flies and bees. Some species can even change colour to match the flower they are on.
Scientific name: Thomisidae
Rank: Family
In order to see this content you need to have an up-to-date version of Flash installed and Javascript turned on.
Deserted village
Bill Oddie finds a crab spider in an abandoned village garden.
Bill Oddie finds a crab spider in an abandoned village garden.
Single mother in danger
A hard-working leafcutter bee may not spot lurking spiders.
A hard-working leafcutter bee may not spot lurking spiders.
Invisible or visible?
Crab spiders appear camouflaged, to the naked human eye.
Crab spiders appear camouflaged, to the naked human eye.
Red crab spider
First footage of the red crab's technique for surviving the deadly pitcher plant.
To film inside the pitcher, the cameraman replaced sections of the plant with glass plates. These retained the liquid and acted as windows through which the creatures inside could be filmed. Combined with a borscope - a periscope the size of an arm tapering to a fingernail - the HD camera enabled macro scale shots in fantastic clarity and detail.
The Crab spiders can be found in a number of locations including: Africa, Amazon Rainforest, Arctic, Asia, Australia, China, Europe, Indian subcontinent, Madagascar, Mediterranean, North America, Russia, South America, United Kingdom. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Crab spider is a common name applied loosely to many species of spiders, but most nearly consistently to members of the family Thomisidae. Among the Thomisidae it refers most often to the familiar species of "flower crab spiders", though not all members of the family are limited to ambush hunting in flowers.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. If you find the content in the 'About' section factually incorrect, defamatory or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia. For more information on our use of Wikipedia please read our FAQ.
Take a trip through the natural world with our themed collections of video clips from the natural history archive.
This is Planet Earth
Narrated by Sir David Attenborough Planet Earth was the ground-breaking series that explored the wild and beautiful parts of our planet like never before.
David Attenborough's favourite moments
Watch the most memorable moments from an incredible career watching wildlife, chosen by Sir David from the BBC archive.
BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.
Ambush predator
Camouflage
Carnivorous
Moulting
Egg layer
Venomous