Bug card No. 1137 of 1,500
Red-backed jumping spider
Phidippus johnsoni
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersDeserts and dry places8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin
The red-backed jumping spider is a black spider with a bright red back and shiny blue-green jaws. It is one of the biggest jumping spiders in western North America. Like all jumping spiders, it does not catch food in a web but pounces on it.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Western North America, from southern Canada to northern Mexico, in dunes and oak woods
Length
1 cm (0.39 in)
What does it eat?
It hunts flies, bugs, moths and caterpillars, and it eats a lot of other spiders too. Most of its prey is about half its own size.
How big is it?
How long is it?
💅small enough to sit on your fingernail🍚as long as 1.5 grains of rice in a row🍽️could run across a dinner table in 3.6 seconds⚡moves 28 times its own body length every second
How big is Red-backed jumping spider compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Red-backed jumping spider about 1 km/h (0.62 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
In 2012, NASA sent one of these spiders into space.
2
It builds a silk tube under rocks or wood and hides inside at night and in bad weather.
3
Its jaws shine a beautiful blue-green colour.
you asked
Most asked questions about Red-backed jumping spider
?How big is the red-backed jumping spider?
About 1 centimetre long, one of the biggest jumping spiders in its area.
?Where does the red-backed jumping spider sleep?
In a silk tube it builds under rocks or wood.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Phidippus johnsoni
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Salticidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Salticidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Johnson jumping spider
Where the facts come from
- Phidippus johnsoni (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Kaldari. CC0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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