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Do not handle or touch any spiders you encounter.
It is important have a good understanding of the spiders that live in your region.
What is it?
Jumping Spiders are one of the cutest arachnids in the world. They belong to the family Salticidae, and are the most diversed and are the largest family group of spiders which is about 13% of all spiders (6,500+ species). They are commonly found all over the world in a variety of habitats such as in gardens, forests, scrubland, mountainous regions and in deserts.
Jumping Spiders are daylight hunters as they don't build webs or dig burrows to catch prey, they rather 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 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 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 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), they are like the size of a flea jumping around.
- 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 the number of new discoveries have grown rapidly in the last 10 years by a number of biologists and citizen scientists and have been featured in the media numerous of times for their discoveries. 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.
I’ve chosen to build this Ant-mimic Jumping spider due to it’s 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:
The goal of this project is to encourage people to have a interest in spiders, We need to respect them, appreciate them and getting to know them better. The vast majority of spiders do not bite or harm people, spiders play an important role in our ecosystem, without them the enviroment we live in will change dramatically and that’s not good news for a whole host of animals, including us.
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, the same with insects.
You can learn 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.
I have been fascinated of spiders, insects and love to photograph the biodiversity of spiders and insects that live around me in the garden.
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
- Nymphicula blandialis
- Brenthia .sp
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
By
ldon13
Help your fellow builder by leaving your feedback based on these three criteria:
- Originality: How original is this - never seen before?
- Building Techniques: How much skill do you think the creator of this MOC has, in terms of building technique?
- Details: Express how much you like the details of the build.
Your feedback is only shown to the creator as well as yourself. It is not available for other users to see. The creator won't see your user name.