Volume 47, Number 1,
February 2001:
Checklist of Kansas Jumping Spiders

Text-only version

ISSUE HOME PAGE

ABOUT THIS ISSUE
- about KSN
- about the authors

IN THIS ISSUE
- introduction
- life cycle
- annotated list of Kansas jumping spiders
- salticid spider bite
- mimicry
- enemies: predators and parasites
- care and maintenance of jumping spiders in the lab
- references

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Checklist of Kansas Jumping Spiders
by Hank Guarisco, Bruce Cutler, and Kenneth E. Kinman

ENEMIES: PREDATORS AND PARASITES
Jumping spiders have a wide range of predators and parasites. Mammals, birds, lizards, and spiders (including jumping spiders) all occasionally consume salticids. Hunting wasps, such as the muddaubers (Scleiphron and Chalybion), organ-pipe muddaubers (Trypoxylon), and spider wasps (Pompilidae) sometimes prey heavily upon jumping spiders. During June, several muddauber cells on an open porch ceiling in Baldwin City contained 2 juvenile Phidippus putnami, 2 male Tutelina elegans, and a female Tutelina harti. The female wasp stings a spider, then carries the paralyzed prey back to her previously constructed mud cell. When the cell has been fully provisioned with spiders, she lays an egg in the cell, then seals it with mud. As it grows, the developing wasp larva consumes the paralyzed spiders.

Spiders sometimes harbor both internal and external parasites. Occasionally, a jumping spider which has been recently collected will die in captivity. Examination of its cage will sometimes reveal the presence of a very long, thin mermithid nematode worm or acrocerid fly larva that has emerged from the body of its spider host. These internal parasites feed on their hosts, which often die before the parasites emerge to complete their development.

The mantisfly or Mantispidae is another interesting spider specialist. The young, mobile mantisfly larvae actively seek spider hosts after they emerge from eggs laid on vegetation. They board the spider then move to a safe spot, such as the narrow juncture (pedicel) between the two main body parts (cephalothorax and abdomen). Once in this location, they puncture the skin (cuticle) and feed on the spider's blood in much the same manner as ticks feed upon mammals, bird, and reptiles. To complete its development, however, the mantisfly larva is on a male spider, it will leave the male and board the a female during mating. As the female produces her eggsac, the mantisfly larva crawls down her body and enters the sac. During the next several days or weeks, the parasite consumes the eggs, grows, pupates, and finally emerges from the eggsac. Therefore, mantispids are both spider ectoparasites and spider eggsac parasites.