The agave jumping spider, Paraphidippus basalis Banks 1904, is a large and boldly-marked jumping spider that occurs in Arizona and New Mexico in the United States, and in Sonora, Mexico. Despite its conspicuous abdominal pattern and large size, the ecology and natural history of P. basalis is unstudied. Incidental reports indicate that this species is associated with the Madrean sky islands which stand above the desert lowlands and form isolated woodlands between the Rocky Mountains and the Mexican Sierra Madres. The only study to date on P. basalis found that in the Patagonia Mountains, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, this species is a habitat specialist on rosette-forming plants in the family Agavaceae, such as agave, yucca, and sotol. Cobbold and O’Donnell (2022) present natural history observations of P. basalis in the Patagonia Mountains made between May 2019 and June 2020, on hillsides dominated by bunchgrasses, oaks, alligator juniper, and pines, at elevations ranging from 1325 to 1730 m.
They found Paraphidippus basalis shelter-use, copulation, nesting, and predation as inhabitants of agave, yucca, and sotol support the hypothesis that P. basalis not only prefers rosette-forming plants (Cobbold & O’Donnell 2021) but it also completes its life cycle on these plants. Given that reports of host-plant specificity are rare in jumping spiders, and that P. basalis is relatively easy to identify in the field, further investigation of this species would provide valuable insights into the ecology of salticids with strong associations with the plants on which they live. As a large, locally common, and easily-identifiable species, P. basalis would make a good model organism for the study of spider behavior, including habitat specialization, mating behavior under poor light
Citation
Cobbold SM, O’Donnell RP. 2022. Natural history of the agave jumping spider, Paraphidippus basalis (Araneae: Salticidae: Dendryphantina). PECKHAMIA 282.1, 4 November 2022, 1―17
