Vegetarian spider discovered

This video is about jumping spider mating behaviour.

Jumping spider uses fuzzy eyesight to judge distance: here.

From Science News:

A little eight-legged pickpocket that darts around acacia trees could be the first known vegetarian spider.

Bagheera kiplingi belongs among the big-eyed, athletic predators in the family of jumping spiders and gets its name from a panther in a Rudyard Kipling story. Yet a population of these spiders in Mexico mostly eats bits of the acacia trees, says Christopher Meehan of Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

A few other spider species do taste vegetable matter now and then, says Yael Lubin of Ben-Gurion University in Sede Boqer, Israel. Male crab spiders that spend their brief mating-oriented adult lives sitting on flowers will sip nectar for a little energy boost. And some baby spiders eat spores that have stuck to a web. But on hearing about spiders specializing in stealing vegetarian food, “I was absolutely floored,” Lubin says.

Female spiders eating males: here.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2010) — If you thought women’s pro wrestling was a cutthroat business, jumping spiders may have them beat. In most animals the bigger, better fighter usually wins. But a new study of the jumping spider Phidippus clarus suggests that size and skill aren’t everything — what matters for Phidippus females is how badly they want to win: here.

Jumping spiders’ vision: here.

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