Petting my Phidippus Adumbratus Jumping Spider
Like 6 Dislike 0 Published on 8 Feb 2016
Personality among Phidippus jumpers can vary a lot from one individual to the next, but the Adumbratus (adumbrati?) I found in Oxnard seem to all have a very calm disposition. I've noticed that one of the differences between wild and domesticated animals is whether the animal has an instinctual bite response to handling. There are certainly Phidippus that I've owned that could have been incited to bite under various conditions, but for this spider, I am not sure it would be possible to elicit a bite response outside of when she'll be guarding eggs. As this video illustrates, she does not seem to be bothered by much - even touching the dorsal side of the abdomen, which seems to be universally disliked by jumpers, just makes her lazily take a few steps in the other direction.
This jumper is descended from a female that was already gravid when I found her. Based on owning a couple of these spiders so far, the female adumbratus abdomens seem to have considerable variation from spider to spider in patterning, hue, and color intensity/saturation, whereas the males have all been more or less homogenous. This spider is also gravid now, and it will be interesting to see what traits her offspring inherit.
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