Bold Jumping Spider

Phidippus audax is a robust salticid, 8–15 mm, densely furred and black with a white or orange triangular spot plus two smaller spots on the abdomen and brilliant iridescent green or blue chelicerae. The two enormous anterior median eyes give some of the sharpest vision of any arthropod. Females build silk nest sacs under bark, in leaf folds or in structural crevices and guard 60–200 eggs; juveniles overwinter in silken hibernacula and mature the following spring, producing one generation per year.

Bold jumpers are strictly diurnal visual hunters that stalk and pounce rather than build capture webs, using a dragline as a safety tether when leaping several body lengths. They are curious and will turn to track a moving hand or camera, which people often misread as aggression; in reality they retreat readily and bite only when squeezed, producing a brief local sting. They are valuable natural enemies of flies, caterpillars, leafhoppers and other spiders, so control should emphasise exclusion and removal over broadcast treatment.