29 January 2021

Did you know that jumping spiders sing and dance?

Well, only the males do. They have to put on a show to distract the ladies. Otherwise their chosen mates will eat them!

Watch how this works in the PBS video below featuring Habronattus clypeatus jumping spiders native from the southern Rocky Mountains to the northern Sierra Madre Occidental and Sonoran Desert.

So does the male Phidippus mystaceus (at top) sing and dance? This paper on jumping spider sex indicates that courtship dances are common among all jumping spiders, so I think it’s safe to assume he dances, too.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)

p.s. For those of you who quest for particular birds or bugs, you’ll enjoy the story that accompanies the Phidippus mystaceus photo. Click here and scroll down to read how, after 3 years of searching, Thomas Shahan finally found him. It begins: “It’s quite difficult for me to put into words just how long I have been wanting to find an adult male of this species!”