Sunday Morning Spider
April 25, 2010
Found this little one waiting at my desk this morning. It was sitting on top of the scrap of paper that acts as my things to do list, so I happily put off cleaning my desk and checking my e-mail so we could take some spider glamor shots.
I also found what might be an easier way of searching the site. Rather than going through all the blog postings, you can type the following query into google:
site:www.whatsthatbug.com spider
Replace spider with whatever insect you like, and all the lovely photos on the site with that name appear.
I guess it wasn’t that helpful though, as I still couldn’t identify this one. Oh well, maybe you can help. Thanks!
Pete
Portland, OR
Hi Pete,
Our quick web search did not provide a match, so we are posting your unidentified spider in the hope that someone will be able to assist in the identification. It reminds us a bit of a Lynx Spider, but not enough to provide a match. Those pedipalps indicate it is probably a male spider, and that supports is diminutive size of less than the diameter of a penny.
Identified as Running Crab Spider by Karl
April 26, 2010
Hi Daniel and Pete:
This looks a Running Crab Spider (Philodromidae), probably a male Philodromus dispar. This is actually a European species that was introduced to North America (I don’t know how or when) and has become established in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. There are other species of Philodromus in the region but none of them look like a match to me (see bugguide.net). There is also a least one other European species (P. aureolus) that looks pretty much the same to me, but I don’t think it has made it to this side of the Atlantic. Regards.
Karl
Wow, that’s great! My girlfriend is a huge fan of anything with even the slightest reference to ‘crab’, so she’s got something new to sketch. Thank you so much for the detailed response!
Pete