Jumping Spider

posted: 05/10/13
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JUMPING SPIDERS | Photo Caption: Excerpted from North America: A World In One Continent by Huw Cordey

Jumping spiders are as small as a grain of rice. Like all spiders, these little guys have eight eyes, but unlike many spiders, they have extremely acute eyesight, and they can jump more than fifty times their own body length. And while many spiders aren't that bright, the jumping spider is extremely smart — some experts think they are as smart as domestic cat.

When the males are out to impress the females, they crouch, bob, dance, and sing like something straight out of an animated movie. The male sings by sending sound out from his rear end through his legs and into the surface he is on, then along up the female's legs so that she feels it. There's always a chance, a fairly significant one, that if the female doesn't like his attempts to woo her, she will simply eat him.


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