Regal Jumping Spider Care Sheet

Country of Origin: South-eastern and North America, the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas and other parts of the Caribbean.

Nicknames: Web-puppies, Fly tigers, Jumping Spoods

Appearance: Spiderlings are dark coloured but as they grow and moult will morph into stunning greys, beiges, browns, creams and oranges if female, while maturing males will turn heads with their stark black and white colouration.

Typically females will have purple or pink chelicerae (fang covers) whilst the males will have green or turquoise chelicerae...but don’t take this as a hard and fast rule for sexing as at times you may get a girl with green and a boy with pink!

Lifespan: 18 months to 2 years on average for females with records of up to 3 years! Males don’t tend to live as long as their girly counterparts.

Adult Size: Adult female phidippus regius have been known to reach a size of up to 22mm. Males are often a smidge smaller.

Feeding

Food items include crickets, locusts, cockroaches, flies such as curly wings, fruit flies (melanogaster and hydei), blue bottles, green bottles, wax worms, wax moths, mealworms.

Offer a food item every 2-3 days when young and with longer intervals for adults. Don’t feed if your spider is showing signs of wanting to moult by hiding itself in a thick white web/ nest/hammock.

Overfeeding is not recommended as this can make your spider a cumbersome jumper and at higher risk of injury when moving around their enclosure. See guide and feed accordingly.

Fruitflies tend to be the staple for the first 6 moults of a jumping spider’s life, and then you want to gravitate upwards to bigger prey like green-bottles, blue-bottles, curly wings and crickets of appropriate size.

Advanced Husbandry are a fantastic supplier of fruitfly cultures and come highly recommended. https://www.advancedhusbandry.co.uk/

Livefood can be offered around the same size as the spider or a tad smaller, however they can in fact take down prey their size or bigger, just be careful not to go for anything more than 1.5x their size to avoid injury to your spider while he/she tries to wrestle it down.

Remember to remove any uneaten prey if your spider is uninterested in eating it, especially if your jumping spider is showing signs of preparing to moult. Livefood with the ability to bite like crickets, mealworms or locusts can spell huge trouble for your vulnerable moulting jumping spider and can have fatal consequences. Flies, although cannot bite can still give your spider untold stress with their buzzing and erratic movements in the enclosure. If your spider doesn’t want his/her meal after the food being in its enclosure for a few hours, I advise whipping it out and trying again in a couple of day’s time.

Temperature

Temps : 26﮿C- 32﮿C preferred, however jumping spiders can live between 21-25c. These temperatures can be achieved with heat mats, heat cable, overhead LED lamps and residual heat from vivariums/terrariums if you are an exotics keeper already. Just check that your spider’s home is not getting too warm or not warm enough by using accurate thermometers and adjusting your heating element or positioning accordingly. A spider too cold will be sluggish, be off its food and generally not thrive, but a spider too hot will feel stressed and suffer dehydration.

Lighting

Being a diurnal insect, jumping spiders enjoy living in bright light. Led lights or a nice bright spot in the room will keep your jumping spider active and happy to hunt. These spiders do not thrive in the dark and can become withdrawn and inactive. You want to aim for a 12 hour day and 12 hour night cycle.

Humidity

Aim for 50-70% depending on how warm you are keeping your spider. Lower temperatures won’t need the higher bracket of humidity. Provide water in the form of droplets on one side of your spider’s enclosure, this should provide all the humidity you need.

Mist pumps are the kit of choice as they produce finer spray than spray bottles found in reptile shops and garden centres. You want to allow your jumping spider the means to drink...not jet-wash it.

Do not flood your enclosure and remove any dead livefood which could lead to mould growth and bacteria. Jumping spiders obtain the majority of their moisture from their livefood and water droplets, keep this in mind as a dehydrated spider could and often will have problems moulting. Jumping spiders like to hang out on dry brickwork in nature, so try to keep their enclosure more on the dryer side with routine dry spells, all the while ensuring to provide water droplets for drinking.

Safety tip - Ensure the water droplets you provide are around ¼ of the size of your jumping spider, the last thing you want is your spider to get trapped by surface tension of a drop and drown. For this reason the finest mist will be required for very young jumping spiders.

Moulting

Jumping spiders due a moult will make a thick white hammock/nest/web in a high space in the enclosure and hunker down inside for a few days in preparation and to perform the moult.

Always ensure no food is left to wander around the enclosure to stress your spider out during this delicate and scary time for your spider. Once your jumping spider has finished moulting, leave him/her alone for a couple of days to harden before offering food again. The smaller the sling, the quicker he/she will finish moulting and drying...whereas the larger adults will take longer to complete and harden.

The temptation to poke and prod your spider whilst inside its nest/hammock can be very tempting but please abstain from doing so, your spider is busy completing a very risky and delicate natural process and the last thing he/she needs is disturbing. Mist one upper corner of the enclosure every couple of days providing those all essential water droplets and see if he/she pops out for a drink...if he/she doesn’t then leave alone and try again in another couple of days.

Housing

Enclosures for jumping spiders can be as simple as a smoothie cup with the top cut out of a dome lid and mesh glued in its place to allow for ventilation.

An upturned deli-cup with access from the bottom so as not to disturb web hammocks/nests at the top of their enclosure can also work okay.

Spoodernest acrylic enclosures are perfectly designed for jumping spiders with lots of cross ventilation and arboreal standing with a front opening door. The “crème de la crème” of jumping spider housing made with high grade acrylic.

Whatever you chose, be aware that most spiders will make their nests/webs at the top of their enclosure and as such to avoid ruining their webs every time you want to do something in the enclosure, get housing with an affixed top and front opening door or can be opened from the base.

Ventilation is important in a jumping spider enclosure to prevent mould growth and build up of stale air which can and will make your spider ill, so please keep this in mind when choosing your spider’s boudoir.

Decoration

Decoration can be as inventive, pretty, naturalistic or as basic as you like. Just don’t over-crowd your spood’s home to allow for adequate jumping space, but don’t leave so bare that your spidey has nothing to explore.

Coco fibre is a common choice for substrate due to its cheapness, ability to hold humidity and natural look.

You can provide the cutest snuggest arboreal hide in the world and your spider will most likely make her/his own web hammock anyway.

Whatever decoration you choose just please ensure its non-toxic, doesn’t turn sticky in heat or humidity, and non-susceptible to mould.