April 12, 2012

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Spiders in Borneo: Geometrical Jumping spiders

By Wayne Maddison

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Jumping spiders (salticids) are so diverse, it's difficult to choose how to organize and express all the different kinds. To convey what we've found in Borneo, let's start with shapes -- geometrical shapes.

First, the circle. Here are two round jumping spiders from our travels in Borneo. Pystira, which we called affectionately "the bumblebee", and Simaetha.

It's hard to find square jumping spiders, but here's my attempt. This is a male that I think is Porius.

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Triangular jumping spiders? Both Uroballus and Ptocasius are triangular, with the abdomen ending in a point.

A natural progression from circle to square to triangle might come next to line. Well, jumping spiders do have width, but these two are pretty thin. First, a male Viciria.

Next, a species I don't recognize, though it might be near Bavia. We call it the "clown" for its bold black and white markings. It lives on palm leaves.

And finally, we arrive to a point. This tiny jumping spider may be related to Simaetha. It's a polished black color, and only about 1.5 mm long. It's bigger than the period at the end of a sentence, but not by much.

Previously in this series:

Spiders in Borneo: Introduction

Spiders in Borneo: Undiscovered biodiversity

Spiders in Borneo: The guests of honor: Salticidae

Spiders in Borneo: Team Salticid

Spiders in Borneo: Mulu National Park

Spiders in Borneo: Dreaming about salticid spiders

Spiders in Borneo: Jumping spiders in the forest

Spiders in Borneo: Beating around the bushes

Spiders in Borneo: Spiders in leaf litter

Spiders in Borneo: A Vertical Life

Spiders in Borneo: Leeches and eyeballs

Spiders in Borneo: Breaking News!

Spiders in Borneo: Falling from above

Spiders in Borneo: What I carry

Spiders in Borneo: Entangled and pierced

Spiders in Borneo: Scattered literature

Spiders in Borneo: Mulu wrap-up

Spiders in Borneo: Lambir Hills

Spiders in Borneo: Replaying the Tape of Life

Spiders in Borneo: More Hispo at Lambir

Text and images © W. Maddison, under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC-BY)

Wayne Maddison is a biologist who studies the diversity and evolution of jumping spiders. When he was thirteen years old in Canada, a big jumping spider looked up at him with her big dark eyes, and he's been hooked ever since. Jumping spiders hunt like cats, creeping and pouncing, and the males perform amazing dances to females. His fascination with the many species of jumping spiders led to an interest in their evolutionary relationships, and then to methods for analyzing evolutionary history. He received a PhD from Harvard University. He is now a Professor at the University of British Columbia, and the Scientific Director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. He has taken it as his mission to travel to poorly known rainforests to document the many still-unknown species before they are gone, and to study them and preserve them in museums for future generations.

More by Wayne Maddison

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