JUMP AROUND - BAGHEERA KIPLINGI

The acrobatic spider with a predilection for veggie food

- Nick Baker's

SPIDERS EAT FLIES, RIGHT? everyone knows that the 45,000 or so spiders in the world are all obligate carnivores, more or less – eating other animals, mainly invertebrates. Nature, however, loves an exception, and one particular spider missed out on that ecological memo. It goes by the wonderful scientific name of Bagheera kiplingi, and its claim to fame is that its diet is – at least mostly – vegetarian.

B. kiplingi is a Central American member of the most charismatic family of spiders: the jumping spiders, also known as Salticidae. These are hunting spiders – instead of making a silken snare to catch their prey, they chase it down and pounce on it. B. kiplingi looks very much like any other jumping spider and shares the same skillset. But, as a veggie, how it utilises those skills is very different.

B. kiplingi lives on a particular kind of acacia plant that produces neat little packages called Beltian bodies on the tips of its leaflets. Accounting for around 90 per cent of the spider’s diet, these tiny bundles of protein and fat represent a complete ‘meal-deal’: they are nutritious, reliable and plentiful, and cannot run, hop, fly or crawl away.