I’m wondering if there’s a good place/book to learn or start learning about invertebrates closely tied to certain plants? There’s tons of info for butterfly and moth host plants/food plants but apart from that I haven’t seen anything that’s written for the lay public, which I’d consider myself her…

One place to find a lot is iNat taxon pages. At the taxon search box type a plant common name and look through the list. Milkweed has butterflies, bugs, assassin bugs, beetles, aphids, moths, and leaf beetles for example. When trying to find what gall is on a plant, often “plantname gall” will pr…

Often with spiders, and I suspect it is the same with other invertebrates that have a high degree of variability in patterning, the colour changes happen at the time of ecdysis. If Eriophora pustulosa is on a green plant, then it will have a green appearance, and if you pick it up and move it to a w…

That IS cryptic! Still haven’t found the spider

I agree with NancyinSunnyvale and JeremyHussell - it is likely to be a crab spider, which don’t spin webs, but are instead ambush predators. Below is an interesting article on plant choice and colour in Thomisus spectabilis in Australia, and the effect this has on bees. Interesting relationship obse…

“The Book of Forest and Thicket”, “The Book of Swamp and Bog” and “The Book of Field and Roadside” all have information on insect associates, but not limited to insects. Below are links to the Google Book previews, so you can see if the information inside these books are useful to you. https://bo…

I don’t see a spider in that photo. I think I see a line of silk across the top of the center of the flower, but everything else seems to be part of the flower. The best place for a photo like this is, of course, an iNaturalist observation. But if you want to include a photo in a post on the forum,…

[IMG_0960 (2)_LI] Seeing if this works.

I think I see what you mean, but I think those are bent-over petals (?? definitely not the right word) of the flower, not spider legs. There are some more to the right of your circle.

One resource for information on species of invertebrates associated with specific plant species (in Illinois, USA) is http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/ I’m slowly wading through the book by Schoonhoven, van Loon, and Dicke, “Insect-Plant Biology” (2nd edition, 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-852595-0). It’…

There is an open source online tool which keeps track of known biotic interactions and includes inat observations: https://www.globalbioticinteractions.org/ It’s pretty cool and under-used. I checked for Indian blanket, and while there are a lot of species listed I didn’t see anything that matched …

Arachnids and insects closely associated with certain plants?

Nature Talk

naufalurfi April 17, 2020, 3:40pm 23

Very cool project! I’m willing to contribute if you take observations from Southeast Asia :)

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Arachnids and insects closely associated with certain plants?

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