CLOSED: identify a spider found in my home in NJ

This message was edited Nov 15, 2015 6:10 PM

almost look like a crab spider - clearly this spider is a visitor from outside most likely seeking warmth.

I disagree about it being a crab spider - they tend to match color with their environment, ambush predators that lurk in flowers waiting for hapless pollinators (or nectar/pollen thieves) to come along and land in their clutches. All the crab spiders I've seen were pretty tiny, too. I vote for immature orb weaver. If I had to guess down to species, the common garden spider, an import from the "old world."

This most definitely is a crab spider (family Thomisidae). If you do enough searching on the subject, you will find that most crab spiders actually are cryptically colored to blend in with bark and the like such as this one. See http://tinyurl.com/dfu8sl and http://tinyurl.com/c6rzqq for examples. I often come across ones such as these when chopping firewood.

holeth, from your answer, I'm guessing Araneus diadematus as the term "garden spider" is often used for a wide variety of families and species. That species have more of a enlarged ab than this picture. Beside flowers are fleeing and most surrounding are mostly brown and green and they are not fast moving or agile - if a spider stays yellow or pink and is moving on a different surface, it makes easy prey for birds. Beside this spider is adaptable as a ambush predator, finding a spot where insects land close enough for them to grab them. Not necessary flowers only but other spots where other insects are common.

wow, did i get slammed, um corrected.

Before now, all the guide books that I have (albeit incomplete) show crab spiders as these delicate sprawling things. I've never seen one with a hearty build. If I saw it move, I might have been amazed and bewildered, and never posted in the first place.

I appreciate the instruction, but if my previous education was off the mark, take it up with the source (2 different Audubon field guides on insects & spiders). I would use Peterson guides, but not all of them are color. Smithsonian and Audubon have good formats, but are a thin overview at best.

Until now, I thought that I could at least classify by major group. There are exceptions to the patterns shown. I never claimed to be a PhD. Just a gardener. I thought that what this site was for...gardeners learning from, sharing with, and teaching other gardeners.

The field guides to insects is never perfect - the authors only showed the most common, the most noticeable insects, etc. Beside have you checked out Elegant Crab Spider, picture 682 and details on page 907 of the The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders 1980 edition? ;-)

Being a gardener mean that you have to be aware of more than just the pretty flower - you have to see the brown and green too. For all the information on insects, there is still loads more to know. Next to nothing is known of life of most moths out there. Where do you see the websites that list host food, nectar plants, etc of most moth species thought they far outnumbers butterflies by more than 100 to 1.

Please don't feel bad, holeth - although I've been a student of entomology (as well as a gardener) for nearly 60 years, I'm still finding out how much I don't know - life is a never ending learning process... And just FYI, even the best field guides can be incomplete/misleading in that photos seldom show the whole range of individual variation in color and size within a given species.

it's tough sometimes to get corrected online because you think so many "eyes" are on you but in truth, you summed it up yourself by saying, "gardeners learning from, sharing with, and teaching other gardeners.

i have several well respected plant books which incorrectly identify plants. no one source is ever perfect. input from others should always be appreciated. i know i always appreciate being corrected, even though it stings sometimes. in the end our goal is the same, to learn.

Hey, i've been corrected at least a dozen times on DG before. It was just the tone this time.
I guess I started it by coming off rather authoritative, but I was like 90% confident because I was following a published reference and a really good track record at picking out orb weavers. Guess I had to trip up sometime. :-)

i know. it's happened to me too.

My apologies, holeth - I did not intend my response to be taken as a 'slam.' My only excuse is that I have been ill and very short on sleep this week, and did not take the time to review my posting before hitting 'Send.'

suunto, please feel well again soon. your posts on dg are appreciated more than you can know. debi

Just let you know I just a few days ago got slammed too for misid a delph/monkhood seedhead as mullein. Sometime it's just things come together by luck - I found half the information online by searching for garden spider.

thanks guys. Malus, I read that one. I guessed Delphinium, but I wasn't sure. I feel your pain.

(sorry, off-topic) BTW, you know that malus can mean evil or apple in Latin? Some scholars think that this is how the apple became the fruit in the Adam & Eve story. (Decoding the Past, TV Series, History Channel) Translated at least 8 or 9 times by humans. Humans make mistakes.

It's the genus name for apple and crabapple. ;-)