NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/498175
40 NEBRASKAland • MAY 2015 relying on both camouflage and their prey's desperate need for food. Both the spider and ambush bug employ the same strategy for dispatching their prey – when the unwary insect gets close enough, the predator quickly grabs it and gives it a venomous injection with its mouthparts. That venom immobilizes the prey, and also liquefies its insides so the crab spider or ambush bug can literally suck it dry. Other predators, such as praying mantises or jumping spiders (and other free-ranging spiders), often conceal themselves near a flower, rather than on it. Usually, they pick a spot just far enough away to be unnoticed, but close enough for pouncing. Mantises seem particularly adept at grabbing sphinx moths as they hover in front of a flower, extracting nectar with their long tongues. They then gnaw their way through the moth's fuzzy bodies like a little kid eating cotton candy. Both jumping spiders and mantises will hunt insects wherever they can find them, so they're less specialized on flowers than ambush bugs or many crab spiders. However, they seem to take advantage of the easy pickings on flowers fairly frequently. Once you start noticing these little hidden assassins, you'll see them everywhere. At that point, you might start wondering how any pollinators survive at all. It is indeed a difficult, dangerous world for Nebraska's prairie pollinators. Much of the state's native grassland has been converted to farmland. In many of the remaining prairies, wildflower numbers have been reduced by chronic overgrazing and/ or broadcast herbicide application. Wide swaths of grassland are cut for hay each summer, abruptly removing entire fields of food for bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Agricultural pesticides and both native and imported Left: A praying mantis nymph on blazing star. Mantids can grab prey with astonishing speed. Middle, right: This fuzzy crab spider is a very common hunter in grasslands but is rarely noticed because of its excellent camouflage. Bottom: A jumping spider sits quietly beneath a flower in a Platte River wetland.