And like you said it, those can be quite the defilers of any ants’ nest that they find. Because in theory, the males establishes itself inside an anthill, so that he becomes “part of the gang”. Then he quits the nest and goes around looking for a female to mate with, and finally the female carries its eggsac back to the hill through unsuspecting ants. When the young hatch, they are welcome to join a good feast and can even attack the queen, which is lethal for any colony, of course.

Also wanted to point out their resseblance to ants. While the abdomen of these spiders is segmented so that it matches those of ants in shape and size, they also use their first pair of legs to imitate ant antennae, waving them up in the air. However, on normal approach, when they are not hunting near to anthills, they do not use their first legs as such, normally using them for motricity. As any Salticidae, they can, of all evidence, jump like crazy. However they can also walk a lot like walking ants do and even stay up like an ant for hours in order to get their prey.

When bothered by predators, they will keep their ant behaviour until last resort. For example, they will point out the abdomen, or start running rampart like ants do, or even wave around with their “antennae” as if they were about to bite. This behaviour is very contrary to those of other, non-mimicking Salticidae, who simply curl up in a bowl or try to jump away. Only in case of extreme anxiety will it finally abandon its mimicry and make a defensive pose innate to spiders, by putting its thorax up with the first two pair of legs, and kind of hiss (but you won’t hear it anyway). Fascinating, ain’t it? =)

But of all this, what I really like about jumping ant mimics is their strategy of attack, which must have developed with ages of observation and comprehension of ant behaviour. For example, you all know well that ants carry each other over distances when one of them is either wounded to the point of not being able to run away, or simply dead. They would take this ant with their mandibles and possibly carry it into their lair for “first treatment”. Spiders do the same thing, but in opposite order. When being given the opportunity, it will jump and bite the unsuspecting ant until it’s paralyzed good, sometime even giving it a lethal blow to the head. Then it will take it with its pedipals and carry it away from the anthill in a manner that an ant would carry their wounded. Only once it is far out of reach and unseen by the others, will it finally have another bite and feast on its well-deserved prey.