Melissa found a new friend, common jumping spider (about the size of a quarter)
Image looking down at your feet after just returning to the ATV to stop for lunch and finding this little guy tucked in between your leg and the tongue of your boot. Yes … this boundy bundle of joy (along with several friends) decided it would be a fun game to play with Melissa. And if any of you know Melissa, you know how fun she thought that game was! In fact … she had tons of fun that day … you should ask her about it sometime.
See … she gets all the excitement and have to site in a cube and stare at a screen. And she complains … ha!
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So, can you identify what kind of bundle of joy it is?
My guess, and this a pretty wild guess, is wolf spider.
Ahh. I can almost see the venom dripping off its huge fangs. Good thing Mel didn’t startle it. 🙂
It is hard to startle something when you are frozen in fear 🙂
Really, spiders are not that deadly … while they are all venomous, very few are strong enough to cause damage. They just look really freaky 🙂
I think this is a Phidippus otiosus. Though, based on Melissa’s description, I think there were a couple Anasaitis canosa joining in on the fun. Part of the Salticidae family of spider, according to Melissa they lived up to their name.
Two species of jumping spiders occurring in Florida,
Gray wall jumper, Menemerus bivittatus (Dufour) and,
Pantropical jumper, Plexippus paykulli (Audouin)
These jumping spiders as adults may be as small as 1 mm in length or as large as 23 mm, but most are 5 to 10 mm.
I was lucky enough to have a few of both species riding along with me this day. I was only able to get this one on “film”.