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Jumping spiders are one of the most spectacular creatures of the arthropod world! There are around 6000 described species of jumping spiders (Maddison, 2015), making them about 10% of all arachnids.
Invertebrates don’t usually fossilize well, but the oldest jumping spider specimens are dated to 54 to 42 million years ago (Hill, 2009). They occur all over the world, including the United States, though most species love tropical rainforests. Jumping spiders have even been found on top of Mount Everest! (Wanless, 1975)
Unlike the spiders you’re probably used to seeing, jumping spiders do not spend an awful lot of time building webs. Instead, they prowl behind unsuspecting prey, ready to ambush. The Colonus puerperus jumping spider can leap 38 times its body length! (Hill, 2018). Jumping this far takes a lot of energy, and therefore, a lot of air. Not only do they have a windpipe for breathing, but they also have an additional pair of book lungs .
Jumping spiders are also well known for their vision (Harland et al., 2012). They have four pairs of eyes, one which can move and three which are fixed. Humans have three types of color-sensing cones, for red, green, and blue light, but jumping spiders have a total of four. They also see ultraviolet light. The vision of the jumping spider is hard for us comparatively dim-sighted humans to understand.
The life and lifespan of jumping spiders
Jumping spiders follow the same general blueprint for the life cycle that all spiders do (Guseinov et al., 2004). Spiders never give birth to live young. Instead, spiders hatch from eggs. As soon as they hatch, the hatchlings resemble the adults… well, miniature adults. Female spiders usually lay a clutch of eggs altogether. Jumping spiders wrap the eggs together in silk, forming an egg sac. The female spider watches over the egg sac, defending it from predators. Young hatchlings are known as spiderlings.
When humans grow, our skeletons grow with us. Spiders’ skeletons are on the outside, and cannot grow as the spiderlings grow. Spiders have to periodically shed their skeletons when they get too small—like changing a small, old t-shirt for a bigger one. This process is known as molting. Molting occurs throughout adulthood too, but that’s because of wear and tear.
In the animal kingdom, larger species tend to live longer than smaller ones. The same is true for spiders! Tarantulas have some of the longest lifespans of all arachnids. This is not a hard-and-fast rule. The oldest spider in the world died at 43 years old (Selk, 2021), but it was hardly larger than an inch long!
Jumping spiders are on the smaller end of the spider spectrum. In the wild, they usually live between twelve and eighteen months. They rarely die of old age. Most jumping spiders will die of disease or because of a predator long before they get old. In captivity, spiders can live much longer. They are better fed and better protected than wild animals. One lucky jumping spider lived until it was three years old! (Mayer, 2023)
Glossary
Book lungs: An air cavity near the arachnid stomach that exchanges air with the atmosphere
Molting: The shedding of the exoskeleton
References
Guseinov, E. F., Cerveira, A. M., & Jackson, R. R. (2004). The predatory strategy, natural diet, and life cycle of Cyrba algerina, an araneophagic jumping spider (Salticidae: Spartaeinae) from Azerbaijan. New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 31(4), 291–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/03014223.2004.9518382
Harland, D. P., Li, D., & Jackson, R. R. (2012). How jumping spiders see the world. In How animals see the world: Comparative behavior, biology, and evolution of vision (pp. 133–163). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195334654.003.0010
Hill, D. E. (2009). Salticidae of the Antarctic land bridge. Peckhamia.
Hill, D. E. (2018). The jumping behavior of jumping spiders: A review (Araneae: Salticidae). Peckhamia, 167(1), 1–8.
Maddison, W. P. (2015). A phylogenetic classification of jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae). The Journal of Arachnology, 43(3), 231–292.
Mayer, C. (2023, April 24). How Long Do Jumping Spiders Live? Jumping Spider Longevity. https://cal-cares.com/insect/how-long-do-jumping-spiders-live
Selk, A. (2021, October 27). The extraordinary life and death of the world’s oldest known spider. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/05/01/the-extraordinary-life-and-death-of-the-worlds-oldest-known-spider/
Wanless, F. R. (1975). Spiders of the family Salticidae from the upper slopes of Everest and Makalu. British Arachnological Society, 3(5), 132–136
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