A Bold Jumping Spider

One of the common spiders I encounter while cleaning out bird boxes and removing growth tubes from planted trees and shrubs around our VA farm is the bold jumper, Phidippus audax .

It seems to prefer closed structures and is certainly rather bold and friendly in its behavior. The green iridescent chelicerae, and black body with a large white spot are distinctive. The purpose of the bright green color near the fangs is unknown to me. The highly visual response of these jumpers and their fuzzy look makes them attractive as spiders go. I have even had them as “pets” in a Florida house where I greatly preferred them over their common prey the roach or “palmetto bug.” I did find that an interesting and sad result of placing out poison for roaches was that my pet spiders would often get killed by secondary effects of poison they took in when they ate roaches incapacitated by the toxin.

So here we have a method of natural pest control of some obnoxious insects that we should encourage, unless you are more freaked out by spiders than nasty insects!

Bill Dunson, Englewood, FL & Galax, VA
wdunson@comcast.net