Jumping Spider

The Jumping Spider

The Jumping spider belongs to the family Salticidae. They get their popular name from their ability to jump to catch preys. These spiders are a little less scary than others of their species and are very interesting creatures. They’ve also been given names likes the daring jumping spider or the bold jumping spider.

HOW TO IDENTIFY JUMPING SPIDERS

Jumping spiders are usually black, sometimes brown, grey, or tan in color with lighter markings.  They have relatively smaller legs than other spiders. The jumping spiders are about 4 to 18 mm in size and covered with bright hair all over their bodies.

Appearance and Behavior

Jumping Spider

Jumping Spider

Jumping spiders have black compact bodies with relatively shorter legs. They are often mistaken with black widow spiders. Their bodies are covered with bright hair, but their body color can vary from black to brown, grey, or tan, with pale marks.

These spiders are usually 4-18mm in size. Their front legs are a bit longer than the back ones and they have 8 eyes in three rows. The first row consists of 4 eyes, with 2 very large ones.

The most distinctive feature of these spiders is that they can jump, and they use this ability to catch prey. Thus, they make their webs only for protective purposes, not for hunting. Jumping spiders are venomous creatures, they can kill insects by injecting venom into their bodies.

However, they are almost harmless to humans since they are unable to inject venom in large quantities. Their bites can cause some allergies and redness but no serious consequences have been reported. Jumping spiders have great vision and are able to detect movement up to 45 cm but their night vision is not so good.

HOW DO YOU GET JUMPING SPIDERS

Like other spiders, the jumping spiders enter homes seeking shelter, food, and protection. Although they naturally live in grasslands, gardens or woody areas, they can sometimes enter your home if they find suitable living conditions. The most common entry points of jumping spiders are gaps in the walls or windows or any other opening.

HOW TO GET RID OF JUMPING SPIDERS

Spiders are very beneficial to humans and harmless if not provoked, so it is better to just take them away from your house, rather than killing them.

  • One way to get rid of jumping spiders is vacuuming up the egg sacs of spiders. However, this method is only useful if you have a small number of spiders in your home. For a large population of spiders, this method won’t prove to be efficient.
  • Since jumping spiders live on the ground and do not spend much of their time in their webs, they can fall into glue traps easily. You can buy glue traps from any local stores nearby. These are very effective both for spiders and other pests that keep wandering around.
  • Spraying your house with peppermint oil can also make the spiders go away since they hate the smell of peppermint.

Jumping Spider Facts

  • Male jumping spiders do a little dance to attract the female ones.
  • Some species of jumping spiders mimic ants to disguise themselves as ants to fool predators and prey.
  • Jumping spiders do not use webs to hunt. Because, why would they, if they can jump?