The zebra spider (salticus scenicus) is a species of jumping spider with black and white patterns across its abdomen and carapace. They are a small, active hunters, locating and swiftly pouncing on other insects – smaller or larger than themselves! They can be found in the wild, on tall grass or leaves but can be bought from multiple invertebrate keepers at expos and online for reasonable prices. Also, despite being incredibly unlikely, in fear, a jumping spider may bite but this probably will not pierce the skin due to their size. Typically, they molt 5-6 times in their lifetime, spanning from 1 to 3 years long. Here, I will describe how to keep these arachnids in captivity.
Housing a jumping spider is easy, it is a simple as replicating their natural environment. However, they will need a sizable enclosure to exercise as if it does not practice pouncing and exploring, it will grow weak and struggle to seize prey. You can decorate the enclosure with leaf litter, sticks for climbing on and plants. Your spider may create resting sacs of silk, in which it will stay when not active. The tank or container must stay at least room temperature but can range above to around 29C (no higher or it could be fatal). Provide holes on the ceiling or sides of the tank/container to ventilate it. Various substrates can be used.
All sorts of insects work as food for jumping spiders. Do not overfeed your spider, supply a suitable size meal fairly often by releasing a live insect into the enclosure. The zebra spider will spot it, approach and pounce on the arthropod – pinning it to the ground whilst it inserts its fangs. You can offer suitable size: crickets, flies, moths and other critters – preferably purchased from a pet store or online as livefood. In the wild, they are known to prey on other spiders in their webs (jumping spiders do not create webs but do sometimes paraglide with a silk ‘rope’) but it is advised that you don’t feed yours other spiders because this feeding technique is not always successful and could result in damage to your pet. Mist your arachnid’s enclosure every other day in the corners of the tank to keep the humidity stable. Furthermore, a shallow water dish may be provided in addition to the spraying to hydrate the spider but make sure it doesn’t drown in the water.
To sex your zebra spider you must look at the pedipalps held in front of the chelicerae. In females, the palps are thin and slender all the way down to tips whereas in males, the palps look kind of like boxing gloves, the tip becoming bulbous. You can only sex them like this when they are mature. You cannot keep more than one spider per enclosure as they will most likely fight to the death! When you would like to mate them, introduce the male into the females enclosure and wait for a few days – monitoring them regularly. Remove the male when copulation is complete and wait for an egg sac from the female. Females can store sperm for a long time (up to a year) so if you have a wild caught specimen, it could refuse to mate – having already mated previously. So, the female could just be waiting for the correct conditions to lay her eggs.