Jumping spider

The jumping spider can be found mainly in tropical regions, but occur in habitats ranging from rain forests to mountains. Everywhere if the sun is shining, these types of spiders will enjoy being on trees, grass and rocks.

Jumping spiders have really good vision made for jumping and catching their food. This spider has 500 described genera, and over 5,000 species. They don't have a particular color pattern, but usually depending on their environment they are able to blend in. When they jump they use a silk-like thread to secure themselves to their landing.

Anatomy
Jumping spiders come in many colors and are all about the same in size; which is about the size of a pea (two cm). Like all spiders they are divided into three main sections: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. Jumping spiders jump in order to get from place to place and use their strong short legs to jump up to 20 to 80 times their own body length.

They all have eight eyes and have two big simple eyes at the front of the head. All of their eyes give them a 360-degree eyesight. Spiders have singular eyes like mammals, which means that they see everything whole, and not like other insects which have compound eyes and see everything in a bunch of little pictures. Their eyes can move in and out for focusing and they can turn up and down and left and right.

Reproduction
The jumping spider's sexes are usually distinct. Males have brightly colored hairs on their legs. On some of the jumping spiders the females are bigger than the males. They use their bright colors in visual courtship in which the colored or metallic parts of the body are displayed, the males then dance around in a vibrational or zigzag movements. Along with dancing the males also use drum sounds and buzzing noises to get the female's attention. And if there are two males involved they will have a "dance off" to show who is the most impressive. After mating, the male offers itself as a self sacrifice for when the eggs hatch.

Ecology
Jumping spiders can jump up to about 60 or more times their body length, and they use this to spring up on their prey and get from one place to another. One interesting thing about this spider is that it will eat dead things, which is in contrast to most other spiders, which cannot see dead insects. So they hunt down the animal they want to eat by jumping from branch to branch, or leaf to leaf. They have an internal hydraulic system that extends their limbs by altering their blood with pressure. That's why they are able to do that without having big muscular legs. But before jumping they always secure themselves by a tread of silk; just in case they ever miss. They greatly depend on their eyesight to find their source of food. Their eyesight is much better them most other spiders.