Phidippus Regius (Regal Jumping Spider)

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

Interesting Regal Characteristics:

Uses webbing as a dragline to catch itself in case of an unsuccessful attack.

Have a nearly 360° field of view. 

Can be tamed and taught to jump from one hand to another.

 Temperature: Regal Spiders can be kept at room temperature.

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

 Size: About 12mm in males and 15mm in females.

 Age: Under 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: 

Royal 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 male’s iridescent blue-green chelicerae.

 Color/Pattern: 

Males are black with white patterning consisting of white spots in a triangular arrangement beneath a white band on its abdomen following its connection to the cephalothorax. They also possess enlarged iridescent chelicerae that are believed to help females visually identify males. Females are slightly larger than the males on average and are often covered in colored scales (gray, tan, brown, orange, etc.) which can make them easily distinguishable from the males. Females also have iridescence on their chelicerae though it is less pronounced and obscured by their palpi which are densely coated in long white hair.

 Social Behavior: 

Regal spiders should be kept by themselves.

 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 50-200 eggs in about 2-3 weeks.