Friday arachnid blogging: back once more

... and, my word, it has been a while, hasn't it?

No digressions today on the metaphysics of taxonomy or anything like that. Instead, I'd just like to show you a pretty spider. And here she is, Xysticus sp. (X. cristatus in all likelihood, to judge by the dark-tipped triangle stretching back from behind her eyes; but she could possibly be X. audax instead. Both species are very commonly found in middle Europe.)

Pretty, did I say? Well; jolie-laide more like, perhaps. She is nothing to compare with the real beauties of the Thomisid crab spider family, the living jewels of the genera Thomisus and Misumenops and so on. And yet, as the great arachnologist WS Bristowe wrote of the less gorgeous Thomisids, 'there is something very attractive about even the plainest ones, similar in some respects to the plainness of a toad.'

There's a reason why Xysticus doesn't come in the gorgeous flower-like colours of some of her cousins, and that's because, unlike them, she doesn't hang around on flowers. Her revier is the world of leaves and twigs and stalks and stems. But she catches her prey in the same way. Stock-still she sits, for hours if need be, till some unfortunate insect passes within reach of those Popeye-like forearms. And then whammo, and bon appetit.