Mecaphesa celer

Mecaphesa celer, known generally as the swift crab spider, is a species of crab spider in the family Thomisidae. Its range is quite large, and it is found throughout much of North and Central America. M. celer are sit-and-wait predators who hide out on the flowers and upper stalks of plants, waiting for prey to pass by. As a variety of crab spider, they have characteristically long first two pairs of legs which they use to grab prey. M. celer spin webs only for creating egg sacs and as part of mating, not for hunting. The spider is a notable example of a species that displays sexual size dimorphism (SSD), a phenomenon in which one sex is significantly larger than the other. In the case of M. celer, females are dramatically larger than males, sometimes over twice their size, making the species a case of extreme sexual size dimorphism. M. celer also displays sexual cannibalism, as the females have been observed to eat their male mates if the males are still in proximity of the females after copulation. Like other spiders within the Thomisidae family, M. celer are an important pest control species for agriculture since they hunt at the upper parts of crop plants where the grains or other harvested products grow. They thereby prey upon and protect agricultural products from potential pests like aphids. This species was formerly a member of the genus Misumenops, and was recently moved to Mecaphesa. Several older website and journal entries about the spider can still be found under the species name Misumenops celer, as with several of the references used in this article.

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