Northern crab spiders (Mecaphesa asperata) are interesting, and rather devious little hunters. Unlike a lot of spiders, they don’t build webs, but instead they are ambush hunters. They hide on plants that are flowering and wait for pollenators to come along for a meal. Then they leap out and bite the prey. These little spiders are quite small, but they are strong and fast and can often capture prey that are much larger than themselves. This tricky little one was actually hiding inside a large flower and I discovered it when I was photographing the flower during one of my walks in Gothe State Forest. Finding it was a pleasant surprise since I love spiders. It didn’t seem to be particularly disturbed by my attention, which made it pretty easy to get several shots of it. The above image is a focus stack of several of the best shots.