Description

Could you ever call a spider "cute"? Well, the audacious jumping spider, Phidippus audax, would certainly qualify!

This alert little jumper is a keen-sighted hunter. It stalks its prey and leaps upon it! It is one of the largest of the Jumping Spiders.

The male can be 1/2 inch long, and the female can be up to 5/8 inch long.

It has a hairy body, and its abdomen is black with white spots. The front pair of legs has black and white stripes and its handsome jaws are a "metallic" green! Two of its eight eyes are very large for its size.

Habitat

The Daring Jumping Spider can be found in the United States from the Atlantic Coast to the Rocky Mountains.

Look for this spider in Virginia woods, grassy areas, and in gardens around fallen leaves and tree limbs, stones, and flowers.

Sometimes it even wanders inside houses or will land from its jumps on the sides of tree trunks!

Food

This hunting spider is entertaining to watch. It stalks its insect prey through the grass, leaping 40 or more times its length to capture its food.

It uses a silken dragline as a safety line before jumping. It sticks the dragline on an object, leaps, and if it misses its prey, can recover by crawling back up the dragline.

Defense

This spider's black and white coloration helps it to blend into crevices.

Its ability to jump great distances is a good defense as well as offense because it can readily escape danger by jumping quickly away.

Its use of its dragline as a safety line helps protect the spider from "hard landings" if it should miss its mark.