I defy anyone who's really, truly considered their feelings on the subject to dislike jumping spiders.
The tragic side-note here is that a vast number of people who I maintain haven't really considered their feelings on the subject loathe all spiders indiscriminately, or even all invertebrates (!), lumping them together as 'Goggos' or 'bugs' or 'Creepy Crawlies', and thereby avoiding actually taking in the brilliance and diversity of the invertebrate world...
So what is my reasoning behind finding jumping spiders so very likeable?
The first reason is obvious - they have huge googly eyes, mammals are programmed to find things with big googly eyes appealing. See also kittens, puppies, babies...
The second reason is that they are commonly found sipping from flowers and generally doing quite un-spiderlike things - in fact, the only known (essentially) herbivorous spider (Bagheera kiplingi - read more on Wiki) is a jumping spider.
The third is associated with their massive eyes - as with most free-living spiders, they have relatively large brains, and in addition to paying a very conspicuous level of attention to their environment, several species have been shown to have complex intra-specific communication rituals.
A fourth reason - although far from the final - is their extraordinary usefulness. Unlike the web-spinning spiders, which are unfairly banished from many homes for their silken fly traps, and larger free-roaming spiders, which have a tendency to attract attention, screams and cartoon fainting ladies, the jumping spiders slip around the insides of our houses almost unnoticed, and thereby make a sizeable dent in the transient mosquito populations of the average tropical home. As an interesting side note, one species - Evarcha culicovora (wiki tells you more) actually prefers to feed upon mosquitoes that have recently chowed down a meal of human blood and - as malaria transmission requires a single mosquito to bite an infected human and, after a brief development period, a second human, this little spider could be invaluable in limiting transmission of the disease that has killed more humans than any other single cause in history (accuracy of the estimates this is based upon is disputable).
After all that pre-amble, here's the picture to break up the text a little.
This spider, Hyllus argyrotoxus, was photographed in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia, in March 2013. It was found in a range of situations, but seemed to be most common in dense, moist understory vegetation, usually in thick-bladed grasses.
So for the taxonomy - in reverse order:
Hyllus argyrotoxus
Simon, 1902
Hyllini
Plexippinae
Salticidae
Salticoidea
Dionycha
Entelegynae see also Enoplognatha ovata
Araneoclada
Neocribellatae
Araneomorphae
Opisthothelae
Araneae
Megoperculata
Micrura
Arachnida see also Dicranopalpus ramosus
Chelicerata
Arthropoda see also Ligia oceanica, Anthia fornasinii, Demetrias atricapillus, Otiorhynchus atroapterus, Melolontha melolontha, Synagris proserpina, Hagenomyia tristis, Acada biseriata, Anthocharis cardamines, Laelia robusta, Zebronia phenice, Helophilus pendulus, Episyrphus balteatus, Diasemopsis meigenii, Megistocera filipes, Panorpa germanica, Anoplocnemis curvipes, Pephricus, Cyathosternum prehensile, Stictogryllacris punctata, Sibylla, and Pseudagrion hageni.
Ecdysozoa
Protostomia
Nephrozoa see also Thelotornis capensis, Lygodactylus capensis, Chalcophaps indica and Hipposideros vittata.
Bilateralia
Eumetazoa
Animalia
Eukaryota
And that's all, folks!
Jerzy Proszynski's page on Salticids from around the world is one valuable website to aid the would-be Salticid identifier. There are others, but the feature of showing a selection of images of each illustrated taxon from a region is extremely handy when you're looking for somewhere to start in this ENORMOUS family.
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