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Photo#506290
Phidippus? - Phidippus johnsoni - female

Phidippus? - Phidippus johnsoni - Female
Onion Valley, elev. 2800m, Sierra Nevada, Inyo County, California, USA
August 8, 2009

Images of this individual: tag all
Phidippus? - Phidippus johnsoni Phidippus? - Phidippus johnsoni - female

Moved
Moved from Phidippus ardens. GB Edwards looked at the images and his opinion is that this jumper is johnsoni, although ardens was a close second-:)! Although both are found at this elevation, he thinks ardens wouldn't show the small white abdominal spots at this stage.

Moved
Moved from Phidippus.

 
Identification criteria?
Just out of curiosity, what makes you think ardens on this Phid? Immature Phidippus are extremely variable and can change appearance drastically during molts. I'm just wondering what the rationale was for this move.

 
I could be wrong about the ID
I could be wrong about the ID as ardens, but based on Edwards' revision of Phidippus, it appears to me that, of the similar species, only ardens and johnsoni are found both in this range and at this elevation in CA. Even in this molt, I'd think johnsoni male wouldn't show the extensive amount of black, the prominent basal band, or the white spotting on dorsum of abdomen, and female would show some evidence of the two oblique lateral stripes. The latter feature and the elevation also seemed to rule out clarus. But I'll be with GB Edwards in a few weeks, and will ask him to review images, to either confirm or correct ID.

 
Cool
No worries, Lyn. I appreciate the reply. It would be great to have his input on all the images. We have dozens of pages of unidentified Phidippus. I am not great on the western ones, but the markings appear superficially similar to other species known from CA, and the immatures are an ID nightmare. Check out Jay Barnes' princeps here and here for some perspective. The other ardens on BG just look subtly different to my eye. Maybe we should keep immatures separate unless they are reared to adulthood or are identified by an expert.

 
Thanks, Lyn!
Other than taking specimens to the LANHM for ID, which I did not in this case, I don't know spiders beyond a few broad categories.

Moved
Moved from ID Request.

 
Thanks, Ben -
I'll check it out when I have time.

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