northeast-flora-and-fauna

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 ...

Here's an Asiatic Wall Jumping Spider . As you've noticed, my apartment doorway attracts moths and mayflies, and so it's natural to expect it to also attract predators. This predator was attracted all the way from northern/western Asia. They specialize in living near human structures and preying on arthropods that live near us. Although they don't really belong here, I haven't read that they're considered a big threat to native species. And they're not a big threat size-wise either, being less than a half centimeter in size. Though their web-spinning cousins are considered classic spiders, the jumping spiders are actually the largest family of spiders. There are over 6000 known species, about 13% of all the spider species. As active hunters, they're also considered to have some of the best vision among arthropods. This spider has found some sorta mayfly for its meal. I sometimes wonder whether the mayflies I see in my doorway are alive or dead (mayflies...