Females are commonly about 6–8 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Synema globosum
A flower ambusher whose females occur in red, yellow and white hereditary colour forms visible to bees and birds.
About this species
Napoleon Spider
Synema globosum(Fabricius, 1775)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Synema globosum is a crab spider that hunts from flowers without building a capture web. Females show striking discrete colour morphs around a black abdominal pattern often compared with Napoleon’s silhouette or hat.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Araneae · Thomisidae · Synema
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe, North Africa and western AsiaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Europe, North Africa and western Asia
Flower-rich grassland, scrub, gardens and woodland edges.
Diurnal ambush predator on flowers and foliage.
Flower-visiting insects, including flies and bees.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
Females occur as distinct red, yellow or white morphs, and breeding work indicates that the colour alternatives have a hereditary basis.
The colour differences are detectable not only by humans but by honeybees, birds and other spiders, so each observer sees a genuinely different signal.
It uses no prey-catching web: enlarged front legs seize visiting insects at close range while the body remains motionless against a flower.