How does a flower spider change color?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

November 26, 2003

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The goldenrod or flower spider (Misumena vatia (Clerck)) is native to the temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere. It is an ambush predator; it sits and waits, usually on a flower or inflorescence, for its prey to come to it. Adult female flower spiders have cryptic coloration; they are camouflaged according to the substrate (the object they are sitting on) and may be white, yellow, or green.

Flower spiders hatch colorless and appear white.
Crab Spider Guards her Egg Sac on a Dead Leaf
Photographic Print by George Grall
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Flower spiders hatch colorless and appear white. The species lacks hypodermal chromes or pigmented cells in the underlying "skin". The bright white coloration of the opisthosoma or "abdomen" comes from white light reflected off guanine crystals that are part of the spider's intestine.

The opisthosoma of a juvenile spider can appear colored due to the consumption of heavily pigmented prey. This coloring is the pigment of the ingested prey inside the intestine and seen through the translucent opisthosoma.

The adult female flower spider is larger than the male and takes greater amounts of prey. She must consume more prey to lay eggs and guard the egg sac. When she finds a suitable perch to ambush prey, she will change color to match her surroundings. But it is not ingested pigments; it is a change in morphology.

The goldenrod or flower spider takes on the color of its surroundings.
A Goldenrod Spider Waits for Prey on a California Poppy Flower
Photographic Print by Rich Reid
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When the adult female flower spider remains on a yellow flower, she becomes yellow. The process takes two to three days and the longer she is on the flower, the deeper her coloration. Eventually her entire body, including her legs, will become yellow.

A yellow flower appears yellow because it is reflecting yellow wavelengths of light. The stimulus for the female's color change is the reflected yellow light. It causes production of a yellow pigment which is released into the hypodermal tissues. ("Diet-induced and morphological color changes in juvenile crab spiders (Araneae, Thomisidae)", V.R. Schmalhofer, Journal of Arachnology (28), 2000)

Ed Nieuwenhuys has a great page of photographs of crab spiders (Family Thomisidae) including the flower spider. To view the page, click on the link:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Thomisidae/Thomisidae.htm

Scroll down to "Genus Misumena" to see photographs of the female, male, and a colorless flower spider with its bright white abdomen taken by Dave Bonsall. Look carefully at the dandelion inflorescence to see the hidden female.

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