”Come into my parlor,” said the spider to the fly.
Location: Coryell County, Central Texas
May 8, 2011 12:27 pm
Hello again. Last year, you kindly identified some photos as a crab spider, or flower spider. I found this spider on another rose and was wondering if it also is a crab spider. It drained the fly, left its carcass and then hid behind another petal, legs ready to grab another fly. It’s a jungle out there.
Curious, I looked at a second rose and found a similar, smaller spider. I wonder if each of our roses has a spider 
Noticed brown spots on the roses, aphids, probably. Need a ladybug intervention soon.
Signature: Ellen
Crab Spider eats Bee
Hi Ellen,
This is indeed a Crab Spider, most likely the Goldenrod Crab Spider or Flower Spider, Misumena vatia. The images you sent us last year appear to be a different species. We believe the prey in your first photo is a Bee, not a Fly. Flower Spiders get their common name from their habit of waiting for prey on blossoms, hence many of their victims are beneficial pollinating insects like this Bee.
Crab Spider
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Ed. Note: The following email was a followup response to an earlier comment. This email was accompanied by 14 photos representing at least 6 different species. While we applaud our new fan’s enthusiasm, we are creating a new posting with edited content. See the initial posting here.
April 28, 2011
Butte County, CA
… I do have a couple of bugs you might be intrigued by; … The other was a seemingly voracious black and white striped bug that was encouraged to go forth and eat LOTS of earwigs.
BTW…I got into chickens as earwig control, and now I have more than I know what to do with…LOL…so watch out! They’re addictive (or at least additive!
…
Anyway, you’re welcome to my photo collection, should you want it…here are two exemplars and enjoy!
If there’s anything I can do to help you folks, I have no life, so let me know.
PA
Hairy Rove Beetle eats Earwig
Hi Pam,
All of your photos are quite wonderful, but we need to maintain a bit of structure here or we would go careening out of control. Please, don’t put all your eggs (read photos) in one basket (read email) and in the future, please use our identification form which limits the number of photos per submission to three. We choose the best or most representative one to accompany the posting, and we sometimes use two or all three. We are positively thrilled to use some of your photos of a Hairy Rove Beetle eating Earwigs. Several years ago we created a Food Chain section to our site to highlight predators and their prey. You can see BugGuide for additional information on the fascinating Hairy Rove Beetle.
Hairy Rove Beetle eats Earwig
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black widow with bess beetle
Location: Garner/Raleigh NC
April 28, 2011 6:49 am
Greetings! I don’t often have anything to post, but here’s some shots I took this morning of a black widow spider that lives in a crack in the brick mortar outside the front door of where I work in Garner, NC. I noticed the web some time ago, but couldn’t tell what was in there until it came out to ’web up’ this rather large meal of what I believe to be a Bess beetle. Sure do hope it doesn’t decide to come inside!
I apologize that the one pic of the front came out so blurry, but I had to put the camera down on the ground to take it & couldn’t see the screen. I included it anyway to possibly help identify age, as I know the spots on the back mean it is younger.
Really enjoy checking out your site, and have had many chuckles over some of your replies to those ’challenged’ posters who don’t quite get the spirit of your site. Rock on!
Signature: thank God for macro lens
Black Widow Eats Bess Beetle
Dear tGfml,
We are really impressed with this incredible Food Chain documentation. We agree that the prey is a Bess Beetle, one of the few insects that actually has family values where adults care for and feed larvae. Both adults and larvae are capable of making sounds by stridulation and it is believe that the sounds are a form of communication. BugGuide has a very informative page devoted to this family of interesting beetles. When the Black Widow matures, she will lose all of her red spots and only the red hourglass marking under her abdomen will remain on her otherwise glossy black surface, making her a strikingly distinctive creature. Black Widows are shy, hiding by day, though they can often be found in the open in their webs once darkness falls. Though they are not aggressive spiders, readers should treat Black Widows with respect as their neurotoxic venom is quite potent. Again, BugGuide has a marvelous information page on Widow spiders.
Black Widow eats Bess Beetle
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Orange beetle eating/killing a spider?
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
April 6, 2011 5:28 am
Hi Bugman,
My sister took this photo in her backyard in Melbourne, Australia,
She said that it appeared that the beetle/bug was dragging the spider along and thought that the spider was the prey. Eventually the bug dropped the spider and she didn’t see what happened to either of them. You can probably tell from the photo that both spider and bug were pretty massive.
I thought the bug might be some sort of assassin bug but it doesn’t really look too much like any of the photos of them I’ve been able to find on the net.
Any ideas?
Signature: Madeleine
Spider Wasp with Huntsman Spider
Hi Madeleine,
This magnificent predator is a Spider Wasp in the family Pompilidae and we believe it is Cryptocheilus bicolor which is pictured on the Brisbane Insect website. The drama would seem to imply that the Spider Wasp is going to enjoy a large meal, but in fact, Spider Wasps feed on nectar. Female Spider Wasps provision a nest with Spiders that are paralyzed, but not killed, by a sting. The Spider Wasp lays a single egg on the paralyzed Spider which then provides a fresh meal for the larval wasp. If the Spider was killed first, it would dry up and the wasp larva would starve. Keeping the Spider paralyzed ensures a fresh meal for the larva. Many Spider Wasps are selective about the types of Spiders they hunt, and Cryptocheilus bicolor is generally associated with Huntsman Spiders. The nest is of this species is an underground burrow, and once the prey has been paralyzed, the Spider Wasp must transport the heavy load to the nest. We believe the Spider Wasp climbs to a high point and glides with the prey since taking off in flight with so much weight would not be possible. The bricks in this photo provide a nice sense of scale.
Spider Wasp with Huntsman Spider
Hi Daniel,
Thank you so much for your quick and very informative response!
This is definitely the insect that is pictured – the photo and behavioural traits match exactly… What an interesting life cycle!
I will pass this information on to my sister who will be very pleased to see the “mystery” solved. She will perhaps also be happy to know she has a native creepy crawly that is keeping the huntsman numbers down a little!
Thanks again for getting back to me.
Kind regards
Madeleine
Dragonfly hunter
Location: Sydney Australia
March 9, 2011 11:57 pm
Dear bugman,can you please identify this
fearsome looking dragenfly hunter ,I found in my garden this morning?
King Regards
Signature: Katja
Robber Fly eats Dragonfly
Hi Katja,
The Robber Fly in your photo looks like an especially large specimen, and large Robber Flies are capable of snatching large flying prey on the wing. They are formidable hunters. We believe we have properly identified your Robber Fly as the Common Yellow Robber Fly, Ommatius sp., by comparing your photos to those posted on the Insects of Brisbane website.
flower spider for wasp babies.
Location: North Burnett. Queensland
February 18, 2011 11:30 pm
Hi Guys,
Just spotted this little wasp, about 1cm, making a valiant effort to transport this flower spider to its burrow. It would do a series of three ’flying hops’ and then rest for a few moments. I guess to build up reserves for the next leap.
Hope you like it.
Signature: aussietrev
Spider Wasp with Crab Spider prey
Hi Trevor,
Thanks for your wonderful photo and your observational account of the incident. We generally refer to Flower Spiders from the family Tomisidae as Crab Spiders, but that may be a North American preference. The common name Crab Spider refers to the morphology of the leg structure, with the front legs being the longest, as well as the often sideways means of locomotion commonly used by members of the family. Flower Spider refers to the habit these spiders have of waiting on blossoms for pollinating insects. Spider Wasps in the family Pompilidae take nectar as adults, and the wasps are often found on blossoms. It seems more than a coincidence that this particular Spider Wasp has chosen a Flower Spider as its prey. It might be deduced that the adult Spider Wasp while feeding may also encounter food for its brood. We imagine that in some cases, it is the Spider Wasp that is the victim when it encounters a Flower Spider.
Potato Bug and Gordian Worm
Location: Porter Ranch, California
February 12, 2011 8:40 pm
Hello Bugman!
I spotted this Jerusalem Cricket in the pool this morning (02-12-11), although I had no idea what it was at the time. After I scooped it out and realized it had drowned, I then spotted what I thought was an extremely skinny snake swimming in the pool. I scooped it out also, then took a few photos of the ”snake” and the ”termite on steroids”. I threw the ”snake” over the fence and went inside to get a ruler for size in the photo of the other bug. I wasn’t quick enough because a Scrub Jay spotted him and flew off with lunch before I could take photos with a ruler.
Frustrated, I decided to begin at What’s That Bug and Bugguide.net to identify the bug. Little did I know that the ”snake” was actually a Gordian Worm or I’d have taken more care to get a decent photo. Drat.
Offering gratitude for your awesome sight, although photo perusal did cause me several shivers and a couple of gags. (I like bugs for the services they provide and their place in the world, but it does get a bit creepy to look at their anatomy in detailed images. To that end, I’m attaching my own creepy images.) After finding out what the duo were named, I even found a video online showing a cricket dive into a pool and the worm wriggle out of him. *shiver again*
(I had four pictures – attached are three)
Signature: Regards, Tiffany Hawkins
Jerusalem Cricket
Dear Tiffany,
Thank you for your wonderful email and excellent photos. The relationship between the parasitic Gordian Worm and the host Jerusalem Cricket or Potato Bug is a chilling example of complexity of the web of life on our planet. The chances of a Jerusalem Cricket ingesting the cyst of the worm and then hosting the internal parasite until being suicidally driven to seek out water in which to drown itself are quite slim, yet enough Gordian Worms survive to perpetuate the species. Gordian Worms are also known as Horsehair Worms.
Gordian Worm
Wheel Bug eating a Praying Mantis
Location: SE Kansas
February 8, 2011 2:51 pm
Found this wheel bug feasting on this praying mantis! I thought it was an interesting picture and I didn’t find one in the gallery. Thought you might like to have it!! I hope the picture quality is good because is was taking with my phone!
Signature: T
Wheel Bug Preys Upon Preying Mantis
Dear T,
Thank you so much for sending us this incredible Food Chain documentation between two predators. The muted tones of your image lends an almost painterly quality to the photograph. There is a bleakness to the landscape that is reminiscent of the staged clay animation dinosaur battles from movies long before the days of computer generated animation. We do have an example in our archives where the final outcome was different: A Preying Mantis feasting on a Wheel Bug from 2008.
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