Fat Jumping Spider with Green Patches
I caught this large jumping spider with a sweep-net in the back yard on July 3, 2011. She was pretty close to a centimeter long, which for a jumping spider around here is pretty huge.
She was also obviously full of eggs, which would be why her abdomen was bulging so much.
Spiders are hard to identify from pictures, because many species have highly variable color patterns. I haven’t been able to narrow this down very far, because I’m not seeing any other jumping spider pictures with those splotchy green markings on the abdomen.
I think it is probably one of the ones in the Phidippus genus, because those tend to be fairly large and often have that double row of pale spots down the abdomen.
I’m not sure how effective she was as a hunter by this point. She was so gravid with eggs that she could barely jump. Still, she was able to get enough to eat to build up all that body mass in the first place, so she was obviously effective enough. Maybe she was just eating her mates?
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Her weight was all on one end and her propulsion was all on the other with a narrow connector in between. That looks like a recipe for disaster.
As for eating her mates, well, that’s part of the mystery and romance of the thing. One look into her 8 beautiful eyes and any male jumping spider would be lost forever. 🙂
I wonder how human attitudes towards sex would be changed if (a) women were opportunistic cannibals, and (b) men knew that they were going to die of old age within at most a couple of weeks anyway, so what’s the point of being cautious?
Great shots!
This spider was hanging on my golf cart from my woods. It is fat, slow and appears to have a cross on its back. What is it, and is it poisoned?