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Sticker of Six-spotted jumping spider
Bug card No. 3875 of 4,939

Six-spotted jumping spider

Bavia sexpunctata
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersRainforests and jungles8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The six-spotted jumping spider lives in warm places from Southeast Asia to Australia. Like all jumping spiders, it does not wait in a web for food. It sneaks up on its prey and pounces. Its light brown back is covered in little dark spots.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Southeast Asia, southern Japan and Australia
Length
8.6 to 9.3 mm (0.34 to 0.37 in)
Top speed
about 1 km/h (0.62 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 and other tiny animals, catching them with a quick jump.
For real!Photo of Six-spotted jumping spider
Picture by Maddison WP, Beattie I, Marathe K, Ng PYC, Kanesharatnam N, Benjamin SP, Kunte K (2020) A phylogenetic and taxonomic review of baviine jumping spiders (Araneae,. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Six-spotted jumping spider about 9.3 mm long (0.37 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 fingernailas long as 1.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 3.6 secondsmoves 30 times its own body length every second

How big is Six-spotted jumping spider compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It is quite big for a spider in its group. Females are a little over 9 millimetres long, and males are just a bit smaller.

2

Seen from above, the front part of its body has six sides, a bit like a honeycomb cell.

3

On its back it has three pairs of bigger spots, six in all, just like its name says.

4

Over the years scientists gave it four different names before they worked out that they were all the same spider.

you asked

Most asked questions about Six-spotted jumping spider

?Where does the six-spotted jumping spider live?

In Southeast Asia, in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan and in Australia.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Bavia sexpunctata
Named by
Doleschall, 1859
Group
Spiders
Family
Salticidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Salticidae
Lives on
Asia, Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Bavia sexpunctata (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 Maddison WP, Beattie I, Marathe K, Ng PYC, Kanesharatnam N, Benjamin SP, Kunte K (2020) A phylogenetic and taxonomic review of baviine jumping spiders (Araneae,. CC BY 4.0, 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.

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