Phidippus Johnsoni

Please give your spider time to de-stress when it arrives from its journey.   

Temperature: Spiders can be kept at room temperature.

 Humidity: A light misting will give your spider enough moisture.

 Size: About ¾ in.

 Age: Around one year.

 Feeding: 

You can feed small feeder insects like crickets, blue bottle flies (spikes), mealworms, wax worms.  Always be careful with crickets as they can attack what is preying on them.

 Prey items should be no larger than the size of the spider’s abdomen. 

 What size of prey do I feed?   

 Adult males:  feed prey that are the size of their head or abdomen every 3 days or to the full length of their body, depending on the life stage, condition, and courage of the spider.  Try to feed a growing juvenile as large of a prey that it will attempt to eat.

 Adult females:  feed prey the size of their body until they are plump, and taper off to feeding every 3 days, until they lay eggs.  At which point, the female is very skinny and needs more nourishment again.

 Remove uneaten prey items: these may endanger the spider during molting. 

 Sexing: 

Johnsoni jumping spiders are sexually dimorphic and have a number of characters that can be used to distinguish males from females. One of the most obvious tells is the black stripe going down the females back.

 Color/Pattern: 

Males are black with a solid red back. Females are slightly larger than the males on average and have a solid black stripe going down their back. Females can range from a yellow to red coloration on their back while the rest of their body is black.

 Social Behavior: 

Johnsoni jumping spiders should be kept by themselves as they will prey on nearly anything they can eat.

 Breeding:

Introduce a mature male and female into a spacious area together. 

Monitor them closely as females will often make a meal of their mate. 

If copulation is successful, the female will produce cocoons containing 50-300 eggs in about 2-3 weeks.