Be cautious of the spiders you observe, do not handle spiders without the complete knowledge of spiders that are local to your region. The majority of spiders are considered harmless. The aim of this project is to help encourage people to learn more about these cool and fascinating creatures. Spiders aren’t as scary as you may think. we can turn fear into fascination.
What is it?
Jumping Spiders are one of the cutest arachnids in the spider world. They are members of the family Salticidae, and are the most diverse and largest family group of spiders making up to be around 13% of all described spiders (6,500+ species). They are commonly found all over the world in a variety of habitats.
Jumping Spiders are daylight hunters as they don't build webs or shelter in burrows to catch prey, they rely on their vision to hunt prey and use their silk as a safety net to jump from one point to another. They can jump at incredible distances from 3 to 30 times their own body length.
They come in a variety of different colours and patterns and interesting body shapes. They come in many different body sizes as adults, from 3mm to 2.5cm in length (0.118in to 0.9in).
They are very curious creatures and love to explore, while some species can be quite shy, Jumping spiders are harmless to humans.
They have eight set of eyes used for specific functions, they rely on their two set of large front-facing primary eyes (anterior median eyes) to hunt for prey and some jumping spiders but not all can see in the full colour spectrum, they have one of the sharpest vision of all arthropods.
Their front facing eyes function as a telescopic lens where the pupils move back and forward within the eyes to see prey and calculate the distance to capture their prey. The other 6 eyes don’t have the best vision of the primary eyes and can only view the world in black and white but it gives them a 360 degree view of their surroundings.
Lego Model:
I've built 3 models for this project, I wanted to show different varieties of Jumping spiders that you may come across. While there are over 6,500 species described worldwide, I decided to build 1 Australian species and 2 American species. The 3 models are slightly different in shape but are not actual size comparison between each model. From left to right.
Caerulean-blue Peacock Spider (Maratus Caeruleus)
Species Range: Isolated Island in Western Australia
Size (Body length): Male: 5mm (0.19in) (Largest of all Maratus) and Female: unknown.
Facts:
- Peacock Spiders are the superstars of the spider world, they belong to the genus Maratus. There are over 110 species discovered in Australia while a few are yet to be discovered and all but one are endemic to Australia. The size of a adult male Peacock spider are incredibly tiny ranging from 2 to 5 millimetres (0.079 to 0.197in), the size of a grain of rice.
- The male are known as Peacock-like by the way they dance with their colourful abdomen to attract a female. All Male Peacock spiders have a unique and complex courtship dance that will attract the attention of female spiders by slowly raising their third pair of legs by waving them in a unique way and unfolding their uniquely shaped abdomen of brightly colourful patterns and then they dance, dance for their lives!
- The females mainly brown in colour and aren’t colourful as the males but are slightly larger which is common in many other spider families, females size are around 1 to 2 millimetres larger than the males (0.039 to 0.079 inches).
- Since 2011, Peacock Spiders have been discovered throughout Australia and a number of new discoveries have grown rapidly in the last 10 years by a number of biologists and citizen scientists. Jürgen Otto aka peacockspiderman, a arachnologist from Sydney, NSW who stumbled upon a species of Peacock spider, Maratus Volans in 2005. While the courtship dance wasn't known to science until 2008 when Jürgen and David Hill (arachnologist from the US) have started to observe, document and film the courtship behaviour of this species which has became a worldwide phenomenal.
I’ve chosen to build this Peacock spider because of his red colours on the cephalothorax and the interesting shapes of patterns on the abdomen to recreate them in Lego form.
Undescribed (Peckhamia .sp)
Species Range: North America
Size (Body length): Approx 3 to 4mm (0.118 to 0.157in)
Facts:
- The genus Peckhamia are Jumping spiders which are one of the few spiders that mimic Ants, they belong to the subtribe Synagelina. They are only found in North America while other species that mimic Ants belong to the tribe Myrmarachnini which can be found all over the world.
- Ant-mimicking jumping spiders can have a identical body shape and a similar colour pattern to those of ants in their specific regions.
- This species use their second set of front legs to simulate the antennas of ants, while other species can emit a chemical mimicry that makes it harder for aggressive ant colonies to detect intruders and it is one of the reasons many predators steer clear of preying on ants due to the unpleasant taste and their aggression, although some spiders do prey on ants.
I’ve chosen to build this Ant-mimic Jumping spider due to the red colour that stands out and being one of the main species featured online for their mimicry behaviour around ants.
Bold Jumping Spider (Phidippus Audax)
Species Range: North America, Southern Canada, Northern Mexico and Hawaii
Size (Body length): Male are 1.2 cm (0.47 in), Female 1.4 to 1.5 cm (0.55 to 0.59 in)
Facts
- Male Bold Jumping spiders use their colourful chelicerae (fangs) of iridescent blue and green as apart of the courtship dance by waving their forelegs and creating a rhythmic pattern by drumming the ground to attract a female.
- They can be seen with different colours due to their age, orange spots on the abdomen are seen in the younger spiders and the colours change to white as they mature.
- Bold Jumping spiders features small eyebrow hairs above the eyes.
I’ve chosen to build this Jumping spider because it is most commonly observed species in parts of North America, Southern Canada, Northern Mexico.
Conclusion:
I have been fascinated of spiders, insects, reptiles and love to photograph, draw and document the biodiversity of spiders and insects that live around me in the garden, by spending 30mins a day in the garden, you will always find something new and possibly new to science.
It’s estimated that only one third to one fifth of existing species of spiders have only been described, it tells you how much species are out there that are not yet known to science, and for insects.. we only just discovered 10% of the world’s insects. we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of Earth’s biodiversity.
You can learn more about the spiders that are local to your region by getting your hands on a spider field guide book, online resources on spider identification from your local museum website and visiting your local museum to see the specimens in person.
There are a few species of moths, flies (yes, flies are fascinating too) and planthoppers that try to resemble the eye pattern of jumping spiders, also known as Partial mimicry.
species include
- Ceratitis millicentae (fly)
- Nymphicula blandialis (moth)
- Brenthia .sp (planthopper)
Thanks for reading and I hope your found this information fascinating and share this project with your friends and families :)
Model Size and Number of Parts:
Caerulean-blue Peacock Spider (Maratus Caeruleus)
Model size:
- Studs: 18 x 19 x 14
- Centimetres: 14.4 x 15.2 x 11.2
- Inches: 5.66 x 5.98 x 4.40
Pieces: 407 pecies
Peckhamia .sp
Model size:
- Studs: 23 x 21 x 7
- Centimetres: 18.4 x 16.8 x 5.6
- Inches: 7.24 x 6.61 x 2.20
Pieces: 334 pieces
Bold Jumping Spider (Phidippus Addax)
Model size:
- Studs: 19 x 23 x 7
- Centimetres: 15.2 x 18.4 x 5.6
- Inches: 5.98 x 5.79 x 2.20
Pieces: 308 pieces
Total Number of pieces: 1049 pieces
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spiderdude
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