Green Crab Spider

Later in the morning, in a wooded spot of deep shade, a very tiny pale-green spider was making its way across the road to grass on the other side. It was smaller than a fingernail, and I don’t know why it caught my eye except that its color was almost white and it was moving, and its shape looked unusual – with very long legs on its front part, curving out, and a rounded diamond-shaped body. 

It was a Green Crab Spider (Misumessus oblongus), common in Georgia and the Southeast. It does not spin a web, but lives in plants, hiding among the petals and leaves to feed on insect prey, which it captures with its extremely long front legs. As I learned when I looked it up later, a Green Crab Spider, only about 3-7 mm long, can walk forward, sideways and backwards, which must be how it got its common name. The one I watched was traveling in a very ordinary way, straight across a road and into grass and clover, where it disappeared.

I should have taken a photo, and wish I had, but it didn’t occur to me at the time – as usual. I was just fascinated to watch such a beautiful, small, intricate creature.

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