Misumena vatia on Achillea millefolia

Images of undisturbed subjects in their natural environment. All subject types.

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Bing Huey
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Dec 13, 2007 1:29 pm

Misumena vatia on Achillea millefolia

Post by Bing Huey »

Hello,

Have only lurked for months after having been graciously admitted to this forum, I thought I should post something I found recently. Does this image suggest that crab spiders feed on pollen when meat is in short supply? Thanks for looking.

BingImage

nto
Posts: 181
Joined: Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:56 pm
Location: Italy

Post by nto »

Hi Bing, I immediately thought of water for your question, google search found and confirmed this hypothesis http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=3584577

the picture has good light (hours shooting photos?)
Antonio

Bing Huey
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Dec 13, 2007 1:29 pm

Post by Bing Huey »

Thanks much for the link, Antonio. Fascinating bit of natural history. Shot was made shortly before sun went down.

Harold Gough
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Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

As the mouthparts of spiders are specialised to suck the liquid body contents of their prey, the empty exoskeletons being discarded, they would be unable to consume pollen.

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

To clarify...

The link provided by nto documents that certain male spiders drink nectar, prefer nectar to plain water, and that availability of nectar significantly extends their lifespan. Presumably pollen would get stuck on them in the process.

It's a strong argument, that specialization of the mouthparts would prevent actual feeding on pollen, but it's not iron-clad.

The same argument could be made for butterflies and their proboscis, but it is well documented that certain butterflies do feed on pollen and derive nutrition from it. See "Pollen Feeding in the Butterfly Heliconius charitonia: Isotopic Evidence for Essential Amino Acid Transfer from Pollen to Eggs", here.

--Rik

beetleman
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Location: Southern New Hampshire USA

Post by beetleman »

It also looks like it has alot of pollen under it`s abdomen in the picture. When you live on flowers, I am sure you pick up a lot of pollen moving around. A very interesting link :shock: I would have never guessed some male spiders drinking necter. The spider looks like it is watching the sunset.
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
Doug Breda

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