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Blister BeetlesAnza Borrego Spider??
March 31, 2010
We were at Anza Boreggo this past Saturday (03-27-10), Spring Season. We were walking up one of the canyons, rocks. And I went to an area where there were some flowering cactus, and other wild flowers. As I was approaching a flower, I noticed what originally looked like a beetle! UNTIL, it started to move and put its two front legs on a flower!!! Then it looked like a spider! What kind of spider is this? It camouflages as a piece of an orchid flower leaf as well! The body was huge and bulbous!
Crystal
Anza Borrego
Desert Spider Beetle
Hi Crystal,
Your photo is lacking the kind of detail that would make our identification easier, but we believe this is a Desert Spider Beetle, Cysteodemus armatus, which may be viewed on BugGuide.
Hi Daniel!
Thank you very much for your quick and very accurate response! It most definitely looks like a Desert Spider Beetle!!! So I was right to think it was a beetle; I got a little freaked out the moment it looked like a spider. Sorry I didn’t get closer to it, as I’m afraid of those things jumping at me! It actually prevented me from going to the flowering cactus that I wanted to take a picture of! 
But now I know exactly what it is! What a specimen!
Sincerely,
-Crystal
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