A spidery surprise. The garden mint is now in full flower, attracting a wide range of flies, bees, and other insects. Lying in wait are three Crab Spiders, which look mainly white to us, but are seemingly invisible to other insects. One of them was this morning visited by a small black-and-gold spider, apparently of quite a different kind judging by its body shape, coloration and large chelicerae; it hung onto her large globular abdomen for an hour or so, not seeming to do any harm, and certainly not appearing to mate. The male, for such it is, is far smaller than the conspicuous female. Whether he often ends up as a meal or not, he is impressively different from the female of the species Misumena vatia.