Hi! Hi hi! I'm Phidi! I'm the largest jumping spider in North America and I'm super friendly and curious. I hope people aren't scared to read about me; I won't bite (or if I do, it's pretty harmless)! Sorry if I seem a little jumpy, er, that is, excited. It's just that all this crazy stuff happened to me yesterday and I've been dying to tell someone!
So first of all, yesterday morning I was just hanging out in my silken nest (which I made for sleeping, not for catching food, because I LOVE hunting) when I saw this juicy bee fly by. My large anterior median eyes are totally adapted to see prey really well, and also things like distance and a whole bunch of awesome colors including UV. I have four pairs of eyes so I can see things to the side and behind me, too. Not to brag, but I actually have the best eyesight of all invertebrates.
Anyway, so I saw this bee and I jumped several times my body length towards it. I
know my legs don't look that muscular, but I have this cool hydraulics thing where the
pressure of fluids in my legs alters so I can still jump really, really far.
Even though I'm awesome at jumping, I make sure to tether a line of silk every
time I jump, just in case. Also, sometimes I do this so I can swing
over and catch prey hanging upside-down, like a tasty ant on the bottom of a
leaf. Other times when I just don't feel like cooking I just grab some food stuck in someone else's web.
But this time I was feeling like a good bee dinner, and so I expertly attacked it, bit it to inject it with venom to immobilize it, and ate it, like usual. It was delicious!
THEN, later that day, this guy I know decided to ask me out! Since I have such great eyesight, I guess he thought I would be impressed with this crazy dance.
The thing is, I've seen way better dances. Some guys are much better at using their iridescent hairs and fringes or incorporating some vibrations I can feel through the ground into their dance. I mean, if you're going to ask me out, do it right, you know? I just felt kind of embarrassed for this guy, but he tried really hard so I didn't eat him.
But then of course I was still hungry, so I went out looking for lunch. I ran into a bunch of family members, which is not unusual since there are around 500 genera and 5,000 species of us Salticids!
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| Photo by Brad via Flickr |
Suddenly I saw this weird red thing and I went to check it out, because I'm naturally super curious. I jumped on it and tried to taste it but there was nothing there!
After that I kind of lost interest because I have pretty complex behavior for an invertebrate and I'm good at adapting my hunting behavior to specific situations. But it was fun to see something new!
Well, thanks for reading about my adventures. Now I'm ready to jump off and relax for the night. What a crazy day!
Learn more about me and my many relatives!
Here is a fantastic paper all about jumping spider biology and behavior:
And here are several other great resources:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_spider
- http://news.discovery.com/animals/insects/spiders-watching-eyes-121016.htm
- http://tolweb.org/Salticidae
See more awesome pictures of us here:
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