Bold Jumping Spider

Let me introduce you to the Bold Jumping Spider. This little spider was at one of the Duke Farms Outdoor Education events last October. (You never know who you're going to meet at the Outdoor Education events.) Despite the boldness of the name, I do recall the spider disliking the attention of my camera, and it took a few tries before I got a reasonable picture.

Like with a lot of spiders, the females are generally larger than the males, though neither will be mistaken for a tarantula. (Despite both being hairy spiders, the tarantulas and the jumping spiders are distinct spider families.)

I suspect that the prominent pair of iridescent green chelicerae (kih-LIH-sih-ree) helped greatly in getting this spider identified. They are the mouthparts of spiders, and in some spiders resemble fangs. The reddish spot on the abdomen (I didn't get a good view of that in my picture) also helped.

Jumping spiders get their name from their style of hunting; basically they hope to get close enough to a meal to be able to pounce on it and subdue it. The Bold Jumping Spider is considered someone who eats some insect pests, though based on their size there are no doubt limitations on what they can attack and how much they can eat.

I haven't got a lot of jumping spider pictures; the only other one I've posted about is a distant cousin, the Asiatic Wall Jumping Spider. While the AWJS is invasive, the BJS is an all American spider. Their range map suggests they're in pretty much every state east of the Rocky Mountains.

October 16, 2021 at Duke Farms
Photo 168430392, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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