Danger lurks among the inviting petals of meadow flowers, but pollinating insects sometimes don\u2019t spot it until too late.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their nemesis is the flower crab spider. Its modus operandi doesn\u2019t involve a web<\/a>.<\/p>\n Instead, it lies in wait on flowers such as ox-eye daisies or buttercups, with its long front legs held out sideways like a crab\u2019s pincers (it also walks sideways like a crab<\/a>), ready to grab any unsuspecting bee<\/a> or fly that gets too close.\u00a0<\/p>\n The female crab spider (though not the smaller male) is able to enhance her deadly disguise by changing colour, slowly turning either white or yellow to blend in with her flowery background.<\/p>\n Flower crab spider waits to ambush prey \u2013 is this ant on its menu? Credit: Sinclair Stammers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n More spider stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Danger lurks among the inviting petals of meadow flowers, but pollinating insects sometimes don\u2019t spot it until too…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-433327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}