Australian Jumping Spider (Breda jovialis)

The Australian Jumping Spider is a small spider that naturally lives on tree trunks
but houses are quite similar to them. Their very large front legs give an idea
about what they eat. They kill and eat much larger spiders than themselves,
including the Black House Spider, which is very toxic to humans, and even Huntsman
Spiders. So in one sense this is a good spider to allow to roam the house. This
species of jumping spider is easily recognisable by the yellow/cream/orange markings
on the abdomen. The white leg-like structures at the front of the head are called
palps. In females the palps get thinner towards the tip (like the legs) but in males,
like this one, they get bigger towards the tip (like boxing gloves). The palps are
sensory organs used for detecting scent, sound and vibrations. The enlarged
palp tips of the males store sperm for discharging when mating.

The pictures above and below show the unusual eye distribution on the head of
jumping spiders (most spiders have 8 eyes, though some have 6, and their
orientation is a major aid to spider identification). Jumping spiders have two
large eyes on the front of the head (above) and others distributed further
back on the thorax (below). This sort of eye pattern is fairly typical of
'hunters', spiders that don't build a web but roam around searching for food
(like White-tailed Spiders, Huntsman and Wolf Spiders).

The toxicity of this spider is unknown. So, like any spider really, don't
pick it up as a bite may cause inflammation or other significant illness.

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