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

MIMICRY
Some jumping spiders look like ants. Since predators commonly avoid animals which have good defenses, such as heavy armor, noxious scent glands, or effective biting and stinging organs, "mimics" which lack such defenses but resemble these organisms often escape predation by confusing a potential predator. Several kinds of jumping spiders may gain protection by resembling ants in shape, coloration, and movements. Synemosyna formica, and species of Peckhamia and Synageles are especially good ant mimics.

The large black and orangePhidippus apacheanus superficially resembles the large, wingless females of mutillid wasps (9). Both are found in barren, open areas and are active during the day. These wasps can inflict a very painful sting, and a predator that has survived such a an encounter would probably avoid creatures which resemble them.

Another interesting example of mimicry involves the defensive wing pattern and behavior of Rhagoletis zephyria Snow, a tephritid fruit fly. When viewed from the rear, the fly looks like a jumping spider! The wings are held vertically and the dark bands on the wings mimic spider legs! This wing pattern inhibits predation by jumping spiders, which are usually major fly predators. In laboratory experiments in which the dark wing bands were obliterated or where unbanded house fly (Musca domestica) wings were substituted for the banded wings, the flies were readily attacked by jumping spiders (31).