The white moustache looked more yellowish actually. It is funny how the female portia spider has a moustache when the male do not. Does this spider look like a crusty flake of bark? Its size is about that of a human thumbnail.
Portia Spiders have been nicknamed Porsche as well as Queen of Spiders. Portia Spider is also considered the veritable Einstein of the arthropod world, and rightfully so...
"The Cognitive Animal written by Stim Wilcox (Department of Biology, SUNY Binghamton) and Robert Jackson (Department of Zoology, University of Canterbury, New Zealand) expressed how tricky it is to discuss cognition in animals, with almost as many definitions of the term as people using them. Rather than trying to choose a single definition, they instead apply a framework designed to raise questions about six separate cognitive properties: reception (taking in information), attention (focusing on particular tasks), representation (maintaining a mental image or cognitive map), memory (retaining information), problem solving (deriving pathways to the achievement of goals), and communication language (influencing other individuals by manipulating symbols). They noted that "Portia strings together series of signals as she engages in aggressive mimicry, noting how this involves a complex, flexible and dynamic sequence of interactions between her and her target." Information credit: https://animalwise.org/2011/07/20/portia-queen-of-spiders/
See my other female portia here:
https://plus.google.com/100543882973615460981/posts/Lkn9BUndURA
See the male portia here:
https://plus.google.com/100543882973615460981/posts/9yPGNzTQR6r
"Scientific Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Family: Salticidae
Subfamily: Spartaeinae
Genus: Portia
Karsch, 1878
Type species
Salticus fimbriatus
Doleschall, 1859
Diversity: 17 species
Portia is a genus of jumping spider that feeds on other spiders (araneophagic). They are remarkable for their intelligent hunting behaviour, which suggests that they are capable of learning and problem solving, traits normally attributed to much larger animals.
Portia exhibits a different mating behavior and strategy than other jumping spiders. In most jumping spiders, males mount females to mate. The Portia male shows off his legs and extends them stiffly and shakes them to attract the female. The female then drums on the web. After the male mounts her, the female drops a dragline and they mate in mid-air. Mating with Portia spiders can occur off or on the web. The spider also practices cannibalism before and after copulation. The female usually twists and lunges at the mounted male. (P. fimbriata, however, is an exception; it does not usually exhibit such behavior.) If the male is killed before completing copulation, the male sperm is removed and the male is then eaten. If the male finishes mating before being killed, the sperm is kept for fertilization and the male is eaten. A majority of males are killed during sexual encounters." - Wikipedia
"Some key characteristics of a Portia are:
Physical features: 0.24” to 0.39” (6 to 10 mm) long.
Poisonous: No.
Lives in: World-wide.
Eats: The Portia Spider hunts and eats other spiders. They will eat any type of spiders, including spiders that are 200 times their own size but they prefer web spiders, probably because they have specialized techniques for stalking and capturing other spiders in their webs. The manner by which they stalk and capture their prey is fascinating because they use specialized tactics for each type of spider they are hunting. Some of their clever hunting schemes include: Imitating a fly caught in a web, pretending to be an inanimate object, conducting the mating ritual of a specific spider species, attaching their own web to the web of their prey, catching a fly and putting it in the spider’s web; while the spider is eating the fly, the Portia sneaks up and eats the spider." - WikiHow
Read more on how to identify a Portia Spider:
http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-a-Portia-Spider
Another interesting information on Portia (Do spiders have a mind?):
http://www.dichotomistic.com/mind_readings_spider%20minds.html
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