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Comments & ID Thoughts
Found this little creature in amongst Christmas wrapping paper in the basement. Very small - only about 3 mm in length. Hard to get a decent picture because it's so small. It has large eyes, which suggest it's a hunting spider of some sort. It dropped down on a thread of silk from the lid in the jar where I have it. Considering letting it go in the basement again. Too cold to put it outside.
Welcome to SpiderID! This lovely creature is Paraphidippus aurantius, the Emerald Jumping Spider. It is perfectly safe to let it go indoors if you wish to. And it’s great you found it in the wrapping paper! According to legend, Christmas spiders are good luck!
I heard that too! I think this might be Myrmarachne formicaria, an Ant-mimic Jumping Spider. The Eurasian species was first found in North America in 2001. https://bugguide.net/node/view/54886 Bugguide lists sightings in Ontario. I admit I “cheated” and used computer vision (Google Lens) on the photo when I knew it wasn’t P. aurantius, but didn’t recognize it. The top answer was in the Myrmarachne genus. I used BugGuide’s data – It’s okay, they’re a parent organization to this site in some ways. I used the genus data to find sightings locations. A user account is needed to access the data, btw.… Read more »
Oh, you’re quite right! Seems I was rather hasty and didn’t consult body shape or markings when making ID. I can’t find any images of Myrmarachne formicaria that show this greenish iridescence, but lighting is everything, and the body shape and other markings are certainly reasonable.
Hey. I’ve been negligent in updating this thread. Apologies. I did send a request for identification to BugGuide. They identified it as belonging to the genus Synageles. I looked it up, and indeed, that’s what my spider looks like. From Wikipedia, there are several members of that genus in North America. I haven’t gone thoroughly through the list to pin down which species it might be, I’m thinking it might be S. occidentalis.
Oh, neat! Thank you for updating us! I am out of practice and consequently a little rusty on spider identification, but I see now, having searched for Myrmarachne formicaria on BugGuide.net, that your spider does not have the long, prominent chelicerae of that species. I am intrigued by the information given about Genus Synageles on BugGuide.net. It says, “Most antlike salticids elevate the first pair of legs in a convincing imitation of ant antennae (Reiskind 1977), but Synageles and Peckhamia utilize the second pair for this purpose.” Did you observe your spider waving her legs in imitation of ant antennae,… Read more »