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In a calla flower in the gardens of the Pedralbes monastery in Barcelona there was a female spider, on the lookout for prey. She is known as Napoleon (Synema globosum) because she has the silhouette of the famous military emperor of the French, as seen in these photographs in La Vanguardia Readers’ Photos.
If we look at the abdomen of this small spider, whose males measure 3-4 mm and females 6-8, we can see the silhouette of Napoleon seen from the front, with his grand marshal’s cap.
Napoleon was famous for being a great military strategist, which allowed him to conquer almost all of Europe. And this spider, one of the crab species, is not far behind and lives up to the legend of Bonaparte, since she is a true specialist in stalking insects.
One of its weapons is that it is capable of changing color easily, which allows it to camouflage itself perfectly among the flowers and wait for the arrival of its prey, which are injected with a poison that paralyzes them.
So much so that they do not need to use spider webs to hunt them. Sometimes the prey are even larger than the spider itself, such as bees and wasps.
Of course, although it can vary in color, from whitish to yellow, red or ocher, it always, always maintains that black spot on its abdomen that has given it the name Napoleon spider. She is a Bonaparte forever.
