New Jumping Spiders Portfolio

[Emanuele]

Just to let you know that I added a new Jumping Spiders Portfolio in my site:
http://www.anura.it/Fotografia/Salticidae_eng.htm

I also added a few new pictures in the wolfspiders page.

Cheers
Ema

 

[padkison]

Love your pictures Ema. Especially like the settings the spiders are in. You must have them in some nice natural habitats.

 

[Emanuele]

Thanks! In the case of the Jumpers, the pictures are almost all from nature. With Ancylometes I didn't have a jungle so I adjusted with a terrarium
Just those of Phidippus and some of Philaeus are made indoor, but I always prefer to photograph them in nature. Jumpers are often shy and you can't imagine how long it takes to get pictures like those of P. clarus for example. Sometimes I get so tired that I have to stop, take a breath look around a bit and hope that the next shot it will stay motionless at least for a second...
In nature is always easier, as you can see with the pictures of Philaeus chrysops eating the black and red Membracidae or those from Burkina Faso.
My preferred ones are the one with the black jumper coming out from the underside of the leaf and that of P. clarus in the dark.
I simply love these spiders...
Cheers
Ema

 

[syndicate]

amazing photos!i love jumpers and its great to see them captured so perfectly.
nice job :clap:

 

[Emanuele]

Thanks Syndicate!
But I'm still working for more "active pictures"... I'd like to take them while hunting, breeding and so on... More work's coming...
Cheers
Ema

 

[platycryptus]

Larger jumping spiders!

Hello Emanuele!

I enjoyed the photographs and the account at your site. You mention that salticids are all less than 15 mm in length, but G. B. Edwards (2004, Revision of the jumping spiders of the genus Phidippus) has recorded a Phidippus regius female of 21.88 mm, and a 17.10 mm Phidippus otiosus. I have seen many of both of these species in the 15-20 mm size range. Some others, like Hyllus from Africa, are described as 15 mm in length but might also get quite a bit larger than this.

In your account you describe the ability of salticids to "invent" new strategies. Salticids clearly adapt their behavior to immediate situations and are quite versatile in this respect. Their large innate behavioral repertoire has only been sampled in a few species and has been studied very little. For example, Phidippus jumping spiders can ambush prey from concealed positions, run a detoured route of pursuit, or even rappel on a dragline down to the level of a sighted prey animal in order to approach it. I watched one rappel down 25 cm and then stalk a large moth horizontally for another 15 cm before capturing it. Their long jumps (in any direction) can be phenomenally accurate, but they usually will only attempt a direct jump at a distance that they can attain. There is much opportunity for new discoveries by the students of these spiders.

I have one small mpeg2 movie of an ambush capture and other pdf papers on salticids at this site:

http://www.esnips.com/web/epublications

Best Regards!

 

[Emanuele]

Hi David!
Thanks for the compliments.
Yes, I do know that P. regius can attain that length, but most Salticidae don't exceed 15 mm, so I only put the "rule" and not the exceptions in that short note. I'm writing a big article about Jumping Spiders, to be issued in a magazine, and I'm putting in it some more accurate informations and recent discoveries.
About "inventing" new strategies I was thinking mostly to Portia. It's proven that they can adapt their hunting strategies even to spiders coming from other countries, that they never saw before.
Another interesting thing is that they change their hunting behaviour with tha same prey in different situation. For example, with Scytodes, if they have to attack a female carrying her eggs they simply attack, because the female has her mouth "full" and cannot defend herself. But if the spider is free to defend itself, then the Portia attack it after a detouring to reach it from behind.
One of the last news about Jumpers is that they actually feed on nectar from flowers, at least when young. It's quite interesting to me and they also have a "technique" for doing it!
I agree with you about the great scientific interest for these spiders. Even if I normally study Lycosidae, they are indeed a group that I'm going to study a bit more in the future...
Thank you for the ambush video of the P. princeps and for the publications, I didn't have some of them, you wrote really interesting articles indeed!!!
Cheers
Ema