Ludicra Jumping Spider - Sandalodes superbus (Bavia ludicra)
FAMILY SALTICIDAE
This page contains pictures and information about Ludicra Jumping Spiders that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Male body length 10mm
- This is a large jumping spider. We sometimes found them hunting on leaves, stems and trunk of Eucalyptus tree.
Female
- Body length 12mm
- The spider is brown in colour, with thorax and all legs in dark brown, dark brown with centre white pattern on abdomen. The males and female of this species are looked quite different.
- This spider can be found in Karawatha Forest during summer and winter seansons.
- This jumping spider build retreat and eggs sac on single green leaf.
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- The spider has just captured a wasp. We never saw this wasp before.
- This spider hunt on leaves as well as tree trunks.
- This time the spider captured a caterpillar, look like a caterpillars in family Lasiocampidae.
Male
- The male and female of this species look quite different, or in other words, they have nothing look common. Although we know jumping spider male and female may look different, it is still hard to believe that they are the same species.
- Male, body length 12mm
- We found this male jumping spider in Karawatha Forest on Sep 2009. It was hunting on hunting on gum tree trunk. It jumped on my camera after we took a few photos.
- This jumping spider has the very long and strong front legs. As the other species in genus Sandalodes, this male also has the "eyebrow" above the large front pair of eyes. This species is monobrow while the other species is double-brush.
- We found the females many time. We found the male only once.
- Reference:
- 1. A Guide to Australian Spiders - Densey Clyne, Melbourne, Nelson 1969, p99 (Opisthoncus sp.).
- 2. Australian spiders in colour - Ramon Mascord, Reed Books Pty Ltd, 1970, p30 (Bavia ludicra).
- 3. Sandalodes superbus (Karsch, 1878) - Salticidae: Diagnostic Drawings Library, by Jerzy Proszynski, 2000.
- 4. Species Sandalodes superbus (Karsch, 1878) 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.
