EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Leaping Arachnid

Jumping Spider, Family Salticidae
Waipoua Forest, Northland, North Island, New Zealand

Explanation:  It's not a leapin' lizard, it's a leaping arachnid.  More correctly, a jumping spider.

We encountered another leaping arachnid -- uh, jumping spider -- in a previous EPOW episode, in Ecuador.  This week we are in the Waipoua Forest reserve of North Island of New Zealand.  Our subject this week is showing a defensive posture seconds before it vanishes before my eyes with a startlingly quick leap.

Startling is a good descriptor, as such before thwarts potential predator attacks ... not that I was a predator, or on the hunt.  Except to study such marvelous invertebrates.  

There are something like 5,000 to 6,000 or so species of jumping spiders of family Salticidae!  I could not study this specimen long enough to venture an identification before it leaped.  

Jumping spiders generally do not bite, and if they do the results -- to us humans, anyhow -- are usually minor to mild.