Wayne Maddison will give an illustrated presentation on jumping spiders to the Sunshine Coast Natural History Society, at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in Sechelt at 7:30 p.m. next Friday, Dec. 5.
Jumping spiders are remarkable for their diversity, as there are more than 5,000 species of many forms, shapes and colours. They all have four pairs of eyes, with one pair being particularly large. They have the best vision among arthropods, which they use in their in courtship, hunting and navigation. Their superior eyesight, along with very agile jumping capabilities, allows them to hunt like cats, spotting prey from a distance and pouncing. Jumping spiders have some very spectacular courtship dance behaviours.
Maddison grew up in Ontario and Alberta, acquiring early on a love of nature and spiders. He attended the University of Toronto and Harvard University for his PhD before taking up a faculty position at the University of Arizona. After more than a decade there, he returned to Canada to UBC in 2003. He is former director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC. His research takes him all over the world to study the diversity and evolution of jumping spiders.
