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Photo#960866
Phidippus richmani? But this one was in North Carolina. - Phidippus putnami - female

Phidippus richmani? But this one was in North Carolina. - Phidippus putnami - Female
Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, USA
July 18, 2014
Size: 11 mm
I found this spider when I came back to a repair job on the attachment of a banister railing to the stucco side of my front porch. I hadn't noticed it there five minutes previously. It was within a couple inches of the place where I was trying to spread sticky cement to the stucco so that I could have a way of covering the old screw holes that had been bored into the stucco. It didn't want to move and almost seemed aggressive when my fingers got close to it. I have since captured it, and it has behaved very quietly. I fed it a moth, and it resisted me when I tried (gently) to pull the moth away from it. It let me photograph it while it complacently ate its dinner.

Notable feature:

Four "horn" tufts along top-front edge of cephalothorax.

Features of the spider that resembles Phidippus richmani:

White (low saturation) triangle on cephalothorax, vertex pointing forward.

Indistinct leg banding, more distinct on front and rear legs.

General pattern of markings on the abdomen.

Moved
Moved from Jumping Spiders. That's what I was suspecting as well but wanted to hear that from someone more familiar with Phidippus.

Phidippus
P. richmani is a great guess, but as you said, it's out of the range of that species. This is a Phidippus putnami, and with a body length of 11mm, it's almost certainly an adult female. An image of the "face" is always a good angle to have when identifying salticids so that we can see the palps, and an image of the underside of the abdomen (venter) is good to be able to see the venter pattern and the epigynum. This is best done through a clear glass. When the females are adult, the epigynum will appear to be open.

 
Thanks
Thank you for the identification. I was depending on the G.B. Edwards photos, and he only has a front view. I could post a head-on view of this spider working on the juncture between head and thorax if you like.

Not useful, but...
I'm always suprised to see picture of Salticidae predating prey almost bigger (and sometime bigger) than themself... They must have either a very strong poison (against arthropods) or very strong muscles. Somebody can recommand me a paper relatively to this? or an hypothesis... I'll post also in the forum.

 
venom of Salticidae
I had this spider in a 4" x 4" x 2" food container (Rubbermaid). I popped the fresh-caught moth in and it flew wildly around for a while. Then it settled down on a side wall. The jumping spider crept up very close and then jumped. The first time she failed, but the second time she caught it and the two of them fell to the bottom of the container. But the moth didn't struggle any more.

There is no regular agreement between the effects of one spider's venom on humans and on other animals, but a Phidippus spider this large has enough venom of a characteristic toxicity to make me very uncomfortable. It's been a long time, but I remember it as being almost as painful as a bee sting.

I think Phidippus spiders tend to bite just behind the heads of insects, so they may have a really profound effect on prey nervous systems.

Moved for the experts
Moved from ID Request. Definitely a Phidippus; we'll see if one of the other experts can narrow it down.

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