Jumping Spider

Description:

Salticidae; Plexippinae; Telamonia masinloc Barrion & Litsinger, 1995. The Jumping Spiders shown here are Male and Female of the same species, Telamonia masinloc. The species was named after the town of Masinloc, where it was discovered, just a few years ago. Masinloc is a short drive from where I live. So, I have no problem with distribution on this one. The first three photos show the female (ladies first, of course!) and the other three show the male. Anyone, who has ever taken pictures of this species, will tell you that the male is much better looking than the female and that is usually quite correct, but not in this case. This male looks very scrappy and I think he may have had some "rough-and-tumble" encounters recently. The female, on the other hand, looks like a prize-winning poodle and absolutely steals the show from the male. N.B. Wikipedia does not have any pictures of this species, but lists it in - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telamonia... as being present in the Philippines (with no mention of distribution elsewhere). This would seem to indicate that it is endemic to the Philippines, but I have been unable to confirm if it is only present here and nowhere else.

Habitat:

These two little spiders were spotted on a Lime Tree (Citrus sp.) in our backyard.

Notes:

When these two spiders were spotted, they were performing the classic Jumping Spider mating dance. The female hides behind a leaf, but makes sure that the male sees her going there. Then the male approaches and peeps over the edge of the leaf. He sees her and hops onto her side of the leaf, but just at the exact same instant, she jumps onto the other side. They seem to move with great synchronisation and it is both amazing and slightly comical to watch.