Happy Halloween from Hanbury House!

I find lots of spiders in the yard all the time, and finally managed to get a couple of pictures of my favorite, the Bold Jumper.  According to BugGuide.net Bold Jumpers are classified as Phidippus audax, and can be easily distinguished by the green fangs and three markings on the abdomen.  The Bold Jumper is a highly variable species, and the markings on their back can come in white, orange, or reddish, but they always have the pretty bright greenish iridescent fangs.  There are some amazing photos of Bold Jumpers on the UC Irvine Natural History website where you can see the cool fangs.  They are supposed to be bold and fearless, but ours must be camera shy because it took me many attempts over the last year and a half to capture a few on camera.  Bold Jumpers are not poisonous or harmful to people.

The reason I consider the Bold Jumpers cute is if you look at the markings up side down, they look like they have a Happy Face on their back.  My kids don’t call them bold jumpers, but happy face spiders. I appreciate having spiders around as natural pest enemies in the garden, all except the black widow and brown widow spiders.