Gray wall Jumping Spider(Male)

Description:

Photo #1: A Gray wall Jumper(Male). Photo #2: The intruder male cautiously approaches the resident male. Photo #3: Both the Males spread their legs wide to appear bigger. Photo #4: Both Males come close to fight when defensive strategy fails. Photo #5: Both Spider's fangs come into play and they are on to a fight. Photo #6: The resident Spider wins and gives a winner's pose. Gray wall jumpers are dorso-ventrally flattened and are covered with short dense, grayish-white hairs. There are tufts of dark brown bristles near the large, forward-facing eyes. The spiders are about nine millimetres long, the male being slightly smaller than the female. The male has a blackish longitudinal dorsal stripe with a brownish-white stripe on either side of the abdomen. The carapace and chelicerae are also black and white and the legs have transverse bandings of the same colours. Immature spiders resemble the female.

Habitat:

It is a pantropical species and is usually found on the walls of buildings or on tree trunks where it stalks its prey.

Notes:

Both young and old spiders feed mainly on small flies which alight on walls. They do not build a web but instead, stalk their prey before launching an attack by leaping on the victim. They have high visual acuity and their large eyes are able to focus on objects and detect different colours. They use their highly coordinated jumping ability to capture their prey and to move from one place to another. They are capable of capturing insects such as crane flies that are at least twice their own size. Male spiders of this species possess a stridulatory apparatus which consists of several long bristles on the palpal femur and a series of horizontal ridges on the outer side of the chelicerae. Sound is generated when the spider rubs these ridges up and down against the palpal teeth. This is believed to be part of a courtship display by the male. In India this common spider is found on the outer walls of buildings and on tree trunks. It moves actively about in search of small insect prey, often vibrating its hairy palps as it walks.