One of my Garden Residents

In early July this year I was attending to my roses when I noticed a spider sheltering beneath a rose. This spider was strikingly beautiful as she stayed in place, looking very alert and seeming to watch me. The next day, she was still there and so I began a careful guardianship, including a request to the gardeners not to go near her. (They were fine with that, I think they know my gardening ways by now!) The spider is well placed between a rose bush and lavender, so she has a large supply of prey.

I researched this spider on the Internet and so I know that she is a female green lynx spider (Peucetia viridians) It is the largest North American lynx spider and found on many kinds of shrub like plants throughout the southern United States. This spider has its name because it springs onto prey, rather than catching prey in a web. It preys on all insects both pests and beneficial. I have seen it catch three bees while it has been in my rose bed (see photograph) and also one day I saw a large grasshopper suspended beneath it. The grasshopper was three times its size! The females have been known to eat the male green lynx spider.

The green lynx spider is used in Florida in crops such as soybeans and peanuts as a pest control. However their use in pest control has to be weighed against their preying on beneficial insects.

It is now over two months since I found her and she is still in the exact same place, sheltering under now a very old rose. She has made it more secure with her very fine web. I am on the lookout for an egg sac, although as each egg sac can contain an average of 200 eggs, I am wondering about the future spider population in my rose bed. Green lynx spiders can bite humans, although rarely and the bite is not harmful but it is painful. I am quite fond of her by now but I will be wearing my garden gloves whenever I am attending to my roses!

Margaret 

CGCI Backyard Habitat Chairman