Phidippius Cardinalis

I spent many hours in search of a female of this species. This particular Phidipus matures in the fall when the leaves here in New England turn shades of red. I found my first Cardinal jumper two years ago and went back to that location a few times to find a female with no luck.

I'm always learning as my jumper search continues and what I learned about this species this past year is that the immature jumpers look very different  from the mature adults and that I might have actually found some cardinal jumpers in the past and just didn't know it! I found this strange bright yellow/orange jumper on Cape Cod last summer and searched online to ID it.  It was an immature cardinal jumper!!! I went back to this location a couple of times and found cardinal jumpers everywhere!!! More than I could count!!! 

Photo © copyright by Patrick Zephyr.