northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here is what I believe to be another Bold Jumping Spider , though this view-from-the-top gives a different perspective from my previous Bold Jumping Spider post . In the picture you don't get much of a view of the chelicerae (the tusk-like appendages near the mouth), though I suspect this particular one had blue chelicerae rather than the easier-to-notice green. My impression is that this one is larger than the one in the previous post. Apparently they're known to be able to subdue prey larger than themselves though I'm not sure what arthropods that puts in play for them. Presumably this is where they got the "bold" part of their name, because they'll "boldly jump on insects that no spider has jumped on before".  The Bold Jumping Spider doesn't use webbing to catch prey, but it does use webbing. One reason it can jump boldly is because they use webbing as a safety line so they can get back to their starting position if they want to. It's not...

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 ...