Jumping Spider Courtship Is Dazzling, Dangerous Business

Habronattus pyrrithrix (Betsy Mason) Tomorrow is international jumping spider day, so I’m taking this as an excuse to tell you about one my favorite jumping spiders, Habronattus pyrrhithrix. I was introduced to the species while writing a story about the perceptual world of jumping spiders for Science News. I interviewed visual ecologist Nate Morehouse at the University of Cincinnati. He had discovered that that Habronattus spiders can see the color red using a specialized filter, making them the rare arachnid with trichromatic vision. (In fact, they can see the same range of colors we can, plus UV). This makes sense given the startlingly bright red faces of male H. pyrrhithrix. They also have lime green front legs and adorable pompoms on their pedipalps. Despite this flashy get up, Morehouse found that it’s the orange knees on the males’ third set of legs that the females are most interested in. (He discovered this using a jumping spider eye tracker, which is exactly as awesome as it…