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Crab spider, scientifically called Misumenops nepenthicola (that lives in/on nepenthes) is one of the infauna associated with pitcher plants. Reddish to blackish, the can look scary, but are pretty harmless. The ones pictured here are from cuttings of Nepenthes gracilis taken from your typical 'semak'. Not realising that the pitchers weren't empty, I dumped the cuttings into a bucket of tepid water. After a while, out comes the crab spiders, scurrying away from their sunken homes. I saw 2 females (very large - sexual dimorphism) and two males plus a smaller one, possibly a juvenile male. All I can do is to allow them to crawl onto my pots of nepenthes. Hopefully they find is as homey as their original house.
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Crab spider, scientifically called Misumenops nepenthicola (that lives in/on nepenthes) is one of the infauna associated with pitcher plants. Reddish to blackish, the can look scary, but are pretty harmless. The ones pictured here are from cuttings of Nepenthes gracilis taken from your typical 'semak'. Not realising that the pitchers weren't empty, I dumped the cuttings into a bucket of tepid water. After a while, out comes the crab spiders, scurrying away from their sunken homes. I saw 2 females (very large - sexual dimorphism) and two males plus a smaller one, possibly a juvenile male. All I can do is to allow them to crawl onto my pots of nepenthes. Hopefully they find is as homey as their original house.
1 comment:
Hi Sean, you have lots of patience! And good thing you know those creatures well. As for me, that crab spider looks scary... like red ants ;-)
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