This is a real nasty! Look on your flowers in the spring and summer. Probably one out of ten or maybe even one of every five flowers has one of these guys on them. Often you will find two and they will be mating.
Don't they look evil? I think they do.
As you might guess from the rather large claws, these guys are predators. They catch all kinds of other insects.
In our human world, we have a tendency to classify insects into the harmful to man and the useful to man category. Usually if they eat other insects, we consider them useful to man. However, the insects that these guys eat are usually considered beneficial to man and include bees and butterflies. It probably also eats some harmful insects as well.
But does it really make a difference?
The flower in this case is swamp milkweed which is probably one of my favorites. It has lovely pink flowers and by the way, the scent this flower gives off is kind of neat too. If you see one you owe it to yourself to smell it.
But watch out for ambush bugs. I wouldn't want to have one of these guys clamp down on my nose!