Double-brush Jumper - Sandalodes bipenicillatus
FAMILY SALTICIDAE
This page contains pictures and information about Double-brush Jumping Spiders that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Male, body length 10mm
- We usually found this Double-brush Jumping Spider on wattle or she-oak leaves and stems . They are also found hunting on Bottle-bush. They have the very long and strong front legs.
- The Double-brush Jumping Spider, males and female look quite different. Males' front pair eyes are large and with eyebrow - the double brushes. Both male and female are large jumping spider with body colour dark-brown to black. There are the white patterns on body, they very between individuals.
Male
- The male's abdomen has two pairs of white spots on the sides. The white markings on this spider are distinctive.
- This spider is common in eucalypt forests in Brisbane. The spider in pictures above was feeding on a White Crab Spider.
- Male spiders likes to hide on thin stems and leaves of wattle waiting for preys. It usually stretches front legs forwards make its slender body invisible on the other side of the stem.
- Above pictures show the spider just captured a Yellow Spot Epicoma Moth Epicoma protrahens.
Female
- The Double-brush Jumping Spider, males and female look quite different.
- They are found most hunting on She-oak and Wattle, although sometimes found on gum trees trunk as well.
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- On Nov 2009, when we checking a retreat of Leaf Rolling Spider, we found that it was occupied by a Double-brush Jumping Spider. It was a matured female with large abdomen.
Young female
- Body length 6mm
- We found this jumping spider once on a Black She-oak in Karawatha Forest during early winter. From the pattern and the shape of the thorax, we believe it is a female.
- We noticed that its abdomen pattern is when young, changes towards female's pattern when growing up.
- The 2nd time we found this spider was Dec 2007 on a River She-oak in Karawatha Forest.
- The 3rd time also find it on She-oak Jan 2008.
- Reference:
- 1. Australian Spiders in colour - Ramon Mascord, Reed Books Pty Ltd, 1970, p26 (Sandalodes albobarbatus).
- 2. Jumping spider Sandalodes bipenicillatus - The Find-a-spider Guide for Australian Spiders, University of Southern Queensland, 2008.
- 3. Sandalodes bipenicillatus - by Robert Whyte, Save Our Waterways Now.
- 4. Species Sandalodes bipenicillatus (Keyserling, 1882) - Australian Biological Resources Study, Australian Faunal Directory.
- 5. Salticidae (Arachnida : Araneae) of the Oriental, Australian and Pacific regions, XIII: the genus Sandalodes Keyserling - Marek Zabka, Invertebrate Taxonomy, 2000, 14, 695–704.
