Metaphidippus albopilosus (Metaphidippus albopilosus)

Metaphidippus albopilosus - Metaphidippus Jumping Spider / Aranha-Saltadora-Metaphidippus (Elizabeth Maria Gifford Peckham & George William Peckham, 1901) Arachnida: Opisthothelae: Araneomorphae: Entelegynae: Salticidae: Salticinae: Marpissoida: Dendryphantini: Dendryphantina

Date: 2nd of June, 2018 at 02:52:09pm.
Sex: ♂
Length: (tip of the spinerets to the frontal border of the cephalothorax): ~6-7mm.
Location: Brazil, Ceará, Fortaleza, Trilha do Parque do Cocó (Trail of the Park of Cocó) (Lat: -3.75, Long: -38.48)

Metaphidippus albopilosus is a jumping spider in the class Arachnida, order Araneae, suborder Opisthothelae, infraorder Araneomorphae, subdivision Entelegynae, family Salticidae, subfamily Salticinae, clade Marpissoida, tribe Dendryphantini and subtribe Dendryphantina.

Its scientific genus name comes from the Ancient Greek, in which "Meta" + the genus name "Phidippus" equals "besides the one who spares horses", "after the one who spares horses" or something close to this.

Metaphidippus albopilosus is found in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. The subject portrayed is a male and measured, approximately, from the tip of the abdomen to the frontal border of the cephalothorax, around 7mm, perhaps 6mm or somewhere inbetween. The whole body (legs, cephalothorax and abdomen) are covered in white and black thick hair. The abdomen has two antagonizing dark spots proximal to the cephalothorax and a couple of antagonizing longer black spots below them, each with a another black spot next to them about half the length of the longer black spots, but a tad bit thicker. Distally from the cephalothorax there is a large black spot ornamented with white contrasting edges. Two reddish or orangeish pointy spinerets are visible at the tip of the abdomen. Eight eyes are present; two large anterior medial eyes with powerful musculatures and the ability to move the retinas inside the fixed lenses; two smaller anterior lateral eyes; two smaller eyes on each side of the posterior medial part of the cephalothorax and posteriorly to these, two larger eyes on each side of the posterior lateral part of the cephalothorax. The eyes go inside the cephalothorax and connects with the brain; Salticids in general have a very good vision and are possibly one of the most intelligent Arthropods out there, giving margin to the interpretation of "intelligence". Their vision is among the highest in acuity in invertebrates. Their esophagus passes right through the brain, and one branch of the gut actually sits on top of the eyes and brain. When the spider sheds its skin to grow, it has to shed its esophagus and stomach, pulling them out through the brain in the process!

The spinerets are used under many applications such a recovery method (when jumping spiders jump, they always or almost always attach a silk line. That way, if they miss their target they they can climb back up and try the jump again), mark their route, make retreats or molts during the night, aiding in the creation of the egg cases and sperm napkins, and they possibly have many more uses. Males spin webs made from the spinerets to deposit a drop of sperm onto right from the underside of the abdomen. The male then places the tip of the palpus into the sperm, drawing it through the palp's opening into the sperm duct, where it is stored. Once he finds a female, he performs a courtship dance to try to impress her. If she accepts him, he will place his palp against an opening on the underside of the female's epigynum and traps it in place in a groove at her back. The palpus proceed to expand and injects the sperm.

Although a jumping spider can jump more than fifty times its body length, none of its legs has enlarged muscles. The power for jumping comes from a quick contraction of muscles in the front part of the body increasing the blood pressure, which causes the legs to extend rapidly.

The heart extends from the abdomen into the cephalothorax, while the leg muscles are attached inside the carapace and operate the legs such as marionette puppets. Their body size and brain volume are proportionate to a human's, but they have more powerful visual processing.

Metaphidippus albopilosus are docile and possess very weak fangs; although they do have venom and can bite (I've been told but I've never seen a case of this occurrence), these are only harmful to small insects; they are harmless to us and animals. Particularly, I've never seen a Salticid attack anything two times larger than them, and I've handled hundreds - if not thousands - of them many, many times, and even under threat they were ALL docile and some didn't even seem to care.

Sources:

Overall information: http://www.cirrusimage.com/spiders_jumping.htm

Digestive system anatomy: http://tolweb.org/accessory/Jumping_Spider_Digestive_System?acc_id=2064

New taxonomy: https://bugguide.net/node/view/1962

And here:http://salticidae.org/salticidImages/pages/ecuador/classification.html#freyina

Jumping Spiders of the World: http://salticidae.org/jsotw.html

Identified by Cesar of Insetologia. Article here: https://www.insetologia.com.br/2018/07/aranha-papa-moscas-metaphidippus-no.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphidippus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phidippus - reference to the genus name.

http://eol.org/pages/1212860/overview Animalia,Arachnida,Araneae,Arthropoda,Brazil,Dendryphantina,Dendryphantini,Entelegynae,Geotagged,Geotagged Animalia,Jumping Spider,Marpissoida,Metaphidippus albopilosus,Neotropical,Opisthothelae,Salticidae,Salticinae,South America,Spider,Spiders

Appearance

The whole body (legs, cephalothorax and abdomen) are covered in white and black hair. The abdomen has two antagonizing dark spots proximal to the cephalothorax and a couple of antagonizing longer black spots below them, each with a another black spot next to them about half the length of the longer black spots, but a tad bit thicker. Distally from the cephalothorax there is a large black spot ornamented with white contrasting edges. Two reddish or orangeish pointy spinnerets are visible at the tip of the abdomen. Eight eyes are present; two large anterior medial eyes with powerful musculatures and the ability to move the retinas inside the fixed lenses; two smaller anterior lateral eyes; two smaller eyes on each side of the posterior medial part of the cephalothorax and posteriorly to these, two larger eyes on each side of the posterior lateral part of the cephalothorax. The eyes go inside the cephalothorax and connect with the brain;

Their esophagus passes right through the brain, and one branch of the gut actually sits on top of the eyes and brain. When the spider sheds its skin to grow, it has to shed its esophagus and stomach, pulling them out through the brain in the process!

Naming

Its scientific genus name comes from the Ancient Greek, in which "Meta" + the genus name "Phidippus" equals "besides the one who spares horses", "after the one who spares horses"

Distribution

Metaphidippus albopilosus is found in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

Taxonomy
Kingdom	Animalia
Division	Arthropoda
Class	Arachnida
Order	Araneae
Family	Salticidae
Genus	Metaphidippus
Species	Metaphidippus albopilosus

Photographed in
Brazil