Jumping Spider
Little Brown Job
When birdwatching, there are a lot of what S. calls “little brown jobs”, little nondescript brown birds (sparrows and the like) that an amateur doesn’t have a prayer of identifying on-the-fly. Well, there is the same problem with jumping spiders, like this one:
This is in the family Salticidae, which is a huge group of arachnid “little brown jobs” (about 4,400 species identified). There are at least two species around here (brown ones like this one, and black ones with white stripes that I hope to get a picture of later). Whether this is just two species, or two groups of umpteen species each, I don’t know.
These little guys don’t build webs, instead they charge around pouncing on things. As you can see in the next picture, they have really good eyes for a spider:
Isn’t that a sweet face?[1] They are believed to have full binocular vision (depth perception is so important when you are planning on pouncing on something), and they can jump a couple of inches. This particular one sat for the photos, and then abruptly leapt completely out of the dish and scurried off. They’re kind of like the ant lions in that they either don’t move at all, or move so quickly that they almost seem to teleport from point to point.
[1] I also like the way it almost looks like his hair was combed. Most of the hairy arthropods I’ve seen have the hairs standing straight up.
Cool spider. Most of the jumpers I’ve seen were also either brown or “zebra-striped” but I’ve seen them in other colors like fluorescent green & one I saw some years ago was silver & metallic red (Too bad I had no camera). Great site, keep up the good work!