Insect ID Archives -

What the heck is a crab spider?

So, I was dead-heading my roses the other day, totally noticing that they were looking crappy. Some buds had shriveled and browned before even opening, and there was hardly any color. As I went to dump my basket of spent rose petals, I spotted this white spider.

Ok, I have to admit, I have a bit of arachnophobia, and when I saw the color of this guy, I thought for sure it was something deadly. My Google search turned up equally terrifying results–apparently there is a poisonous white spider in Australia. So, I went to my Texas A&M site and filled out their form. As usual, the response was quick. Patrick informed me that this was a crab spider and is considered beneficial.

He said it was not the cause of the damage on my roses, that it looked like the plants were infected with spider mites. Gosh, Patrick is just so helpful!

Anyway, I promptly ordered a bunch of ladybugs and lacewings to eat the spider mites, so stay tuned!

So, one morning, a few weeks back, I walked into my garden and saw this. If you can’t quite tell, it was emerging from some kind of cocoon that looked like it had been buried in the ground. Needless to say, I stifled a scream and slowly backed away, sure that thing was going to attack me.

But then, I went inside to get my camera. Because, yeah, I’m obsessed with taking pictures even when I’m thoroughly freaked out.

When I came back, it had finished birthing itself.

And had left its cocoon thing behind.

I searched and searched the internet but couldn’t find a definitive answer on just what the heck this bug was. That is until I stumbled on the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension page, where they have a form that you can fill out to ask an entomologist to identify an insect for you.

This is the answer I got:

The insect is one of the robber flies, insect family Asilidae. It’s adult coloration is not fully formed, but I think it is one of the “bee killers”: https://bugguide.net/node/view/6695/bgpage. There is some general information here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/6695. Robber flies are predatory on other insects and considered to be beneficial species.”
https://askanentomologist.tamu.edu/insect-id-form/

So, no it wasn’t going to attack me. Despite how freaky that thing was, according to A&M, he’s a good guy. Just a little reminder to get the facts before we go squashing something out of existence, right?

Insect ID: Crab Spider

Robber Fly