Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1891 — A Spider Mimic. [ARTICLE]

A Spider Mimic.

An interesting instance of mimicry in a spider has been observed in the south of France. To snare its prey, the spider hides in convolvulous flowers, which are plenty in this region and are of three principal colors. A green variety of the spider visits the flowers having a greenish hue, a variety mostly white lives in the white flowers, and a partly pink variety frequents the piuk flowers. If the animal is found in a red dahlia it is red instead of pink, and is yellow in a yellow flower. The three varieties of Thomisus were at first supposed to be permanent, but it hus been accidentally discovered that the color of any one of those spiders chauges in a few days when the spider is placed in a differently colored flower; and in a box together the pink, white, green and yellow yarieties soon become nearly white.—[Trenton (N. J.) American.