Appearance
Adults tend to be about a centimeter in length. Both sexes have a bright red abdomen; the female has in addition a black central stripe. The chelicerae of both sexes are of a shining teal color. The rest of the body is mostly black. It is one of the species of jumping spiders that are mimics of mutillid wasps in the genus "Dasymutilla"; several species of these wasps are similar in size and coloration, and possess a very painful sting.
Distribution
The distribution of "P. johnsoni" is bounded by the Great Plains, the Pacific Ocean, northern Mexico and southern Canada. It occurs from sea level to tree line, occupying relatively dry habitats such as coastal dunes or oak woodlands. Between two and thirty redback jumping spiders per 1,000 m2 were found during a study in 1976.In 2012, NASA sent an individual of this species into space.
References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
