Africa Wild

Lisbeth wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2020 9:17 am There really are some weird and also some beautiful beasts around

New species and new records of jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) from central South Africa - 2011
Charles R. Haddad and Wanda Wesołowska

Genus Natta Karsch, 1879
Type species: Natta horizontalis Karsch, 1879.
This African genus includes only two species. The body is dark with a blue metallic shine and a few pairs of glaring orange patches on the abdomen. Copulatory organs of both sexes resemble those of Phintella species.

Natta chionogaster (Simon, 1901)
Habitat and biology: This species is usually found in the vicinity of foraging ants, especially Anoplolepis custodiens F. Smith, which it mimics in its movements and metallicscales on the body. In central South Africa it is clearly less common than N. horizontalis Karsch, 1879.

Natta horizontalis Karsch, 1879
Distribution: Widespread in the Afrotropical Region. In South Africa known from the Gauteng, Mpumulanga and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, recorded here from the Free State and Northern Cape provinces for the first time (Fig. 114).
Habitat and biology: As for N. chionogaster above.

Cecile Roux
Visual Storyteller · 4. Januar 2018
Found my ant mimicking Salti again in the garden in Upington. Now convinced it is Natta chionogaster. Very excited about this find. They are so very small, and very pretty!

Mark Spicer‎
30. Januar 2018 ·
Another small addition to our jumping species, if this is indeed Natta chionogaster
Nr Alldays, Limpopo

Michael De Nysschen
16. November 2016
Found this one in leaf litter and near foraging ants....there were many many of this Salti.
Salticidae Natta Chionogaster

Elize Vega Eveleigh Letsibogo Game Farm.
9. Mai 2017 · Bela-Bela, Limpopo
The only photo I could get of this ant mimicking spider. Correct me if I am wrong, but I would say this is Natta chionogaster

ExFmem wrote: ↑Sun Apr 19, 2015 9:13 pm Jumping Spider
Family Salticidae






Oct. 2012 Kruger National Park, Bateleur Hide

Parajotus obscurofemoratus sp. nov.

Plate XXII, figs. 2-2d.

Parajotus plate.jpg (138.21 KiB) Viewed 454 times

The femur of the first leg is dark and iridescent, in contrast with the other joints.
♂. Length, 6.5-8 mm. Legs 1432, nearly equally stout.
Our specimens are badly rubbed, so that we can form no clear idea of the markings. There are some reddish hairs left around the eyes and on
the cephalic plate. On the sides of the thoracic part are wide bands of white hairs, sharply outlined by black bands above and below, and ending abruptly at the dorsal eyes, while the hairs on the sides of the cephalic part are black. The clypeus is brown and is one-third as wide as the large middle eyes. The falces are long, stout, projecting, brown in color, and have, on the front faces, ridges of long stiff black hairs. The abdomen has some long white and reddish hairs at the front end, and has white bands on the sides. In the middle there seems to have been a band of reddish hairs running backward for two-thirds the length of the dorsum, and behind this are indistinct dark and light chevrons. The sides are more or less streaked. The first legs have the femoral joints dark and iridescent in whole or in part, making a contrast with the other joints, which are much lighter, and this is true in a less marked degree of the second legs. The first and second pairs have fringes of black hairs under the femur and of light yellow hairs under the patella and tibia. The third and fourth legs are light yellow with dark spots.
The palpi are usually dark and are covered with long stiff black hairs.