Milky Flower Spider
S2, Yellow Dorsal
Milky Flower Spider
S1, Profile
| Milky Flower Spider S2, Yellow Dorsal | | Milky Flower Spider S1, Profile | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Spiders, Scorpions, Mites & Ticks (Arachnida) | |||
| Order: | Spiders (Araneae) | ||||
| Family: | Crab Spider (Thomisidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Milky Flower Spider (Zygometis xanthogaster) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S1, White Dorsal🔎 | ||||
Thank you Suzanne and Jim & Dee Petersen for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Adelaide Hills, the Flinders Ranges and elsewhere They are very variable with the specimen we found on Ellura being the yellow form. The name actually translates to: xanthogaster->(xanthos = "yellow") + (gaster = "belly"). It also makes sense as were millions of small yellow forbs flowering at the time it was found. Notice the one we found in the Adelaide Hills was white, under a white flower. Unusually the white one had no stripes at all (on the legs or carapace). Often the leg stripes are black. The yellow one was a very small female, ~4.5mm long (body & head), while the white one was a larger female ~7mm. | |||||
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