Females reach about 9–11 mm; males are much smaller.
Fine-art photographic collection
Misumena vatia
A flower ambusher that can slowly change colour — yet succeeds through more than camouflage alone.
About this species
Crab Spider
Misumena vatia(Clerck, 1757)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Misumena vatia hunts without a capture web, waiting on flowers and seizing visiting insects with enlarged front legs. Adult females can reversibly shift between white and yellow over several days.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Araneae · Thomisidae · Misumena
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
the Holarctic: Europe, temperate Asia and North AmericaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
the Holarctic: Europe, temperate Asia and North America
Flower-rich meadows, gardens, roadsides and woodland edges.
Diurnal sit-and-wait predator on flowers.
Pollinating insects, especially flies, bees and small butterflies.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
Adult females can reversibly change from white to yellow and back again over several days by moving pigment within their tissues.
A field experiment recording more than 2,000 predator–pollinator encounters found that matching a flower’s colour did not increase prey capture.
Females routinely overpower bumblebees and butterflies larger than themselves, pinning them with the first two pairs of legs before biting.
Sources and scientific references
More photographs
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