Daily Salticidae

As if some invisible hand had taken a common T. imperialis and just smuuudged the pigmentation downward, the Yemeni T. similis reserves its red for the latter two-thirds of its opisthosoma, the rest of its body in large part as stark and clean a black-and-white as any critter could ask for.

As of the writing of this post, this is so fresh off the presses that the World Spider Catalogue has yet to accept it, but: new genus dropped! The newly described Candiaella fasciata doesn't look drastically different from its reassigned congener C. foestiva, but there's a certain intriguing iridescence to those white "tiger stripes" for which the species was named.

Curiously, though O. ichneumon seems to employ its opisthosoma and spinnerets as its approximation of a hymenopteran head, this literally backward mimic appears to make a habit of the same abdomen-bobbing motion found in salticids who conduct ant mimicry "the right way around".

The small sensory hairs on this handsome Mexican Lyssomanes' otherwise shiny-smooth chelicerae increase in density toward the front, suggesting that a higher level of sensitivity is useful for the "manipulating" end of these sizeable mouthparts.

This wee creature is barely bigger than a bit of sand itself -- can you Spot the Salticid?

Though described in Gardzińska 1996 as "lighter colored" than its genus' type species A. mollicoma, this aptly named Papuan salticid, which indeed makes its home beneath eucalyptus bark, may in all likelihood be easier to casually distinguish from its Australian cousins by geographic distribution, as the spiders may exhibit a certain amount of natural variance in coloration.

No need to teach your grandspider to suck eggs! Oophagy has been observed by several salticid species, and this H. semicupreus even got to exercise a bit of gourmand choosiness, passing over the insect eggs that didn't measure up to her standards as she Pac Woman'd her way down the line.

Christmas in July, as they say...

Ant-eating is already a risky business to begin with, what with the biting, the stinging, the formic acid, and the ability to summon an entire army of vengeful sisters on one's head -- even the smallest worker is no joke. This little jumper sized up the situation and not only chose violence, but apparently chose violence against the biggest damn ant it could find.

With an emphatic intensity that only ant-mimics can understand, this little Siler is putting her everything into performing those fake antennae.

The meticulous precision of male R. rubrigera's fine racing-stripes and crisply ruled mustachio make a splendid contrast to his bright colors and the typical Rhene chunkiness.