Bug Wiki
Bug Wiki / All bugs / Spiders
Sticker of Hammer-jawed jumping spider
Bug card No. 2174 of 4,939

Hammer-jawed jumping spider

Zygoballus rufipes
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersGardens and meadows8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The hammer-jawed jumping spider is a tiny jumping spider, only a few millimetres long. Like all jumping spiders, it has big eyes at the front of its head and sees very well. It does not wait in a web but sneaks up on insects and jumps on them.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica
Length
3 to 6 mm (0.12 to 0.24 in)
Top speed
about 0.8 km/h (0.5 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless

Spiders are venomous! Read about spider venom on Venom Wiki →

What does it eat?
It hunts small insects, creeping close and then pouncing on them.
For real!Photo of Hammer-jawed jumping spider
Picture by spidereyes2020. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Hammer-jawed jumping spider about 6 mm long (0.24 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould run across a dinner table in 4.5 secondsmoves 37 times its own body length every second

How big is Hammer-jawed jumping spider compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The females are bigger than the males. A female can be 6 millimetres long, a male only about 4.

2

It was first described in 1885 by George and Elizabeth Peckham, a husband and wife who studied jumping spiders, from a spider found in Guatemala.

3

For almost 100 years the spiders from the north were thought to be a different species. In 1980 a scientist showed they were all the same kind.

4

Spider experts searched for it in Panama for years but never found one there.

you asked

Most asked questions about Hammer-jawed jumping spider

?How big is the hammer-jawed jumping spider?

Females are about 4 to 6 millimetres long and males about 3 to 4 millimetres.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Zygoballus rufipes
Named by
Peckham & Peckham, 1885
Group
Spiders
Family
Salticidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Salticidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Hammerjawed jumper

Where the facts come from

  1. Zygoballus rufipes (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by spidereyes2020. CC0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

Bug Wiki honey jar For grown-ups: Bug Wiki is free, with no ads and no tracking. A small tip helps keep it online.Leave a tip

More from the same group: Spiders

European garden spiderSpidersGoliath birdeaterSpidersBrown recluseSpidersRedback spiderSpidersYellow garden spiderSpidersBold jumping spiderSpiders

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows

Cereal leaf beetleBeetlesGold-marked thread-waisted waspWasps and hornetsMagnetic termiteCockroaches and termitesZabulon skipperButterfliesQueen of Spain fritillaryButterfliesSwamp cicadaTrue bugs and cicadas
Honey jarfor grown-ups