Macro photography - Crab spider hunting a tiny adonis blue butterfly
Today I was chasing a large butterfly in a southern French meadow for about 10 minutes until I could finally make my way toward it while crawling on my stomach to take some shots. After a while a tiny Adonis blue butterfly suddenly appeared and landed on a nearby flower, so I decided to direct my lens toward it to take a few pictures of it as well. As I was clicking away the butterfly was snatched by a much tinier flower crab spider (thomisus) which was waiting for a meal on the petals all along.
Species of this genus of spiders display a range of evolutionary camouflage and hunting techniques. For example a spider could be UV reflective while the flower is UV absorbing, thus creating a contrast between the spider and flower through the eyes of the pollinator. The contrast created attracts pollinators that serve as prey. Other spiders could be yellow or white, depending on the flower in which they are hunting (active camouflage). Younger females specifically, which may hunt on a different flowers, may change color according to their environment (adapting their color to the flower in a process which may take up to 25 days to complete).
The following photo is of the meadow where I went chasing butterflies. It is located in Occitanie, and the mountains in the background are the foothills of the Pyrenees, which serve as a natural border between France and Spain:
THIS IS A STUNNING PHOTO!!!!! Seriously well worth the effort I think. plus running around a French meadow chasing butterflies isn't exactly a bad day.
Thank you :) and yes, Occitanie is stunning. Our village is surrounded by nature and this is an area I hike to on regular basis to get some fresh air, views, and wildlife... or in other words, my nature dose. I get to see deer and foxes on regular basis here, but yeap, even the bugs are worth the effort.