Many species of jumping spiders have black bodies, but some are brown, tan, or gray in color. They usually also have pale or colorful markings. These markings may be white, gray, yellow, red, blue ...

Alias: Johnson’s jumping spider, or Red backed jumping spider. Adults are small, usually about a centimeter in length. Like most jumping spiders, they have most of their eyes facing forward and ...

Editor’s note: “Critters” is a monthly series featuring insects, spiders, snakes and other freaky/fun creatures found in the Grand Valley. You know, the kinds of critters you aim to. Breaking News - ...

For jumping spiders, the ability to see red may have evolved as a way to avoid toxic prey. But once this new world of color was available to the spiders, they put it to good use.

So the red colours that are so vivid to us likely appear as mere black markings to jumping spiders. "It's a bit of a head-scratcher what's going on here," says professor Nathan Morehouse.

They found that P. regius routinely spotted termites with striped and solid black capes first. However, the spiders attacked termites in striped capes far less than they did those wearing black or ...