Brick-Red Jumping Spider
We found this little brick-red jumping spider running around on our carpet on July 8, 2017. The thing next to him is a bendy drinking-straw, for scale – he was easily small enough to run down the inside of it if he had wanted to.
As it turns out, I think this is the same species as the the one we found almost exactly four years previously (to within a day) and almost exactly the same place (our living room)!
The last time I posted it, commenter Jorie O’Brein said that it looked like it could be Phidippus whitmani. While a lot of those are more boldly colored than my specimen here, it looks like they vary in intensity of coloration rather a lot, and this one looks well within the range of variation.
The pictures don’t quite show the pedipalp tips, but from his general build I think this is most likely a male – the females tend to have much bigger abdomens, and more subdued coloration.
Anyway, I think it is interesting that both of the times we’ve found one of these, it was not only in the house, but in the same part of the house. This could either mean that there is a particular door or window that they like to come in through in the first week of July, or that just maybe they are living in the house all along (or, at least, more likely to try to get into the house than some other spiders are). Then again, it could just be a coincidence.
Comments are closed.
Handsome!
Gorgeous as usual!