The Spore Crawler is a Zerg base anti-air static defense structure, which deals 15 points of damage to air units and has the ability to detect cloaked units. Although similar to the Spore Colony, the Spore Crawler has the distinct ability to Uproot itself and Root in a new location, giving it very good mobility and a more flexible use. Take note that Spore Crawlers lose their detection ability while uprooted.

Spore Crawlers are used in ZvZ to protect against a lot of Mutalisks. In HotS the Spore Crawler was buffed to 30 damage vs biological units. This was reverted for LotV to 15, because Viper have Parasitic Bomb to deal with large numbers of Mutalisks.

Spore Crawlers have excellent endurance and deal more damage per second than Photon Cannons, but not as much as Missile Turrets. It depends how many AA structures or units are on the field. Queens are typically used to fill gaps in early game air defense, and Hydralisks remain more versatile on the move.

Spore Crawlers, like all air defenses, are most effective when tightly packed. This protects them from being singled out by clusters of air units.