Jumping spider

Found me the biggest damn jumping spider I've ever seen, and my first sighting of this species of Saltid. (phidippus audax) aka (bold jumping spider) 18mm long. It's my new pet spider she eats blowfly's, I get the blowfly's in the evening by catching them in a small tin and transfer them to her box by putting the tin in the freezer for a few minutes, the fly's get so cold they stop moving and can't fly away when I open up the tin. Then I just drop them from the tin into her box, they start moving around when they get warm enough. They are dead-meat as soon as she notices them move... I'll probly keep her long enough to get some better shots of her fangs and some of her eating, then I'll put her back in the yard.

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Two more shots..

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And two more

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Great series Congrats on your new pet

Excellent series- lovely detail of a beautiful jumper. I always call this the maxfactor version because it looks like it's been at the makeup
Brian V.

great series.......the second shot is superb

Great pics #2 and #4 for me.

Thank you for all your comments. It's definately colorfull, this one has the most iridescent mouth parts compared to the other jumpers that I have seen. Usually I have to view them at the right angle to see the colors but this one you can see from any angle.

I was resizing some of the shots when I noticed she was going round and round in the box. I stopped playin with the files and watched the spider for a little while. I noticed that after about half a lap around the box she'd rear up and stretch out all her front legs and stick her fangs out with the chelicerae open real wide, when I get the difuser rigged up I'll try to get a shot of that at 1:2 or 1:1 These are some of the first shots with the efs-60, trying to get the hang of this lens, they are very good but soo unforgiving.

scary, pleased we don't have such species in NZ

Great series Kraig, all of them.
What's your gear here ?

Regards

You'd be surprised They completely harmless btw.

Dave

Leorooster captured the same species a while back, it's a wonderful looking Jumper, well done. I can't say I can agree with keeping her though. Jumpers are territorial, she'll remain in the same vicinity, so you'll get plenty more shots of her if you just look.

Dave

Awesome shots Kraig! She's a beauty. I love the green reflection in her eyes in #2

oooh nice nice nice my son was in the room and loved them too.

Nice series..........the 2nd one is my favorite