Phidippus regius

Here is one of the adult females I found last week down in South Florida. I have been going down there for many years and started searching for regius when I started my search for jumpers about 4 years ago. This is the first year that I found some regius in the wild!!! Amazing big spiders!! I found two females this one and one with purple chelicera (fangs) and a couple of adult males that look very different (see previous post). This species is the largest jumper on the east coast and certainly larger that any jumpers here in MA. The jumpers in the family Phidippus are the largest of all the jumpers on the planet and we have approximately 60 species in North America. Massachusetts is home to 7 species of phidippus. Photo © copyright by Patrick Zephyr.