page_title: Portia fimbriata
section_title: Reproduction and lifecycle
hierarchical_section_title: Portia fimbriata / Reproduction and lifecycle
caption_attribution_description: male Portia fimbriata from Okinawa. Čeština: Skákavka pavoukožravá (samec?), Okinawa
context_page_description: Portia fimbriata, sometimes called the fringed jumping spider, is a jumping spider found in Australia and Southeast Asia. Adult females have bodies 6.8 to 10.5 millimetres long, while those of adult males are 5.2 to 6.5 millimetres long. Both sexes have a generally dark brown carapace, reddish brown chelicerae, a brown underside, dark brown palps with white hairs, and dark brown abdomens with white spots on the upper side. Both sexes have fine, faint markings and soft fringes of hair, and the legs are spindly and fringed. However, specimens from New Guinea and Indonesia have orange-brown carapaces and yellowish abdomens. In all species of the genus Portia, the abdomen distends when the spider is well fed or producing eggs.
  The hunting tactics of Portia are versatile and adaptable. All members of Portia have instinctive hunting tactics for their most common prey, but can improvise by trial and error against unfamiliar prey or in unfamiliar situations, and then remember the new approach. There are differences in the hunting tactics of the regional populations of P. fimbriata.
context_section_description: Before courtship, a male Portia spins a small web between boughs or twigs, and he hangs under that and ejaculates on to it. He then takes up the semen into reservoirs in the palpal bulbs on his pedipalps.
  A laboratory test showed how males of P. fimbriata from Queensland minimise the risk of meeting each other, by recognising fresh pieces of blotting paper, some containing their own silk draglines and some containing another male's draglines. Males also were attracted by fresh blotting paper containing females' draglines, while females do not respond to fresh blotting paper containing males' draglines. This suggested that the males usually search for females, rather than vice versa. Neither sex responded to one week-old blotting paper, irrespective of whether it contained males' or females' draglines. A similar series of tests showed that P. labiata showed the same patterns of responses between the sexes.
  When meeting another of the same species, P. fimbriata does not stalk but displays by moving quickly and smoothly, and displays at 4 to 27 centimetres away. It raises its legs, its body sways from side to side, and the palps are lowered below the chelicerae ("fangs"). This is very different from the stalking it uses when encountering another salticid of a different species, despite receiving the same visual stimulus, the sight of the other's large anterior-median eyes. Although P. fimbriata is influenced by pheromones much more than is usual among salticids, visual cues alone are enough to start displays and distinguish members of the same species from other salticids, even if neither partner moves. The spindly, fringed legs of Portia species may identify members of the same species, as well as concealing these spiders from other salticid species.
  In P. fimbriata from Queensland and in some other species, contests between males usually last only 5 to 10 seconds, and only their legs make contact. Contests between Portia females are usually long and violent, and in P. fimbriata from Queensland these often including grappling that sometimes breaks a leg. A victor may evict a loser, and then eat the loser's eggs and take over the loser's web. Unlike in some other Portia species, victorious females of P. fimbriata from Queensland do not kill and eat the losers.
  A female that sees a male may approach slowly or wait. The male then walks erect and displays by waving his legs and palps. If the female does not run away, she gives a "propulsive display" first. If the male stands his ground and she does not run away or repeat the propulsive display, he approaches and, if she is mature, they copulate, the male inserting the tip of one of his palpal bulbs into the female's copulatory opening, using the first palp that made scraping contact. If the female is sub-adult (one moult from maturity), a male or sometimes a sub-adult male of P. fimbriata may cohabit in the female's capture web. Portia species usually mate on a web or on a dragline made by the female. P. fimbriata typically copulates for about 100 seconds, while other genera can take several minutes or even several hours. Unlike in some other Portia species, females of P. fimbriata from Queensland do not eat their mates during courting, nor during  or after copulation.
  When hunting, mature females of P. fimbriata, P. africana, P. labiata, and P. schultzi emit olfactory signals that reduce the risk that any other females, males or juveniles of the same species may contend for the same prey. The effect inhibits aggressive mimicry against a prey spider even if the prey spider is visible, and also if the prey is inhabiting any part of a web. If a female of one of these Portias smells a male of the same species, the female stimulates the males to court. These Portia species do not show this behaviour when they receive olfactory signals from members of other Portia species.
  In laboratory tests, Portia species including P. fimbriata mate with other species, but the females then produce no eggs.
  P. fimbriata in Queensland prefers to lay eggs on dead, brown leaves about 20 millimetres 
caption: Male of P. fimbriata
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