The key is intended to meet the needs of naturalists, biologists and taxonomists who wish to identify Australian jumping spiders. The character set has high redundancy (98 characters, 294 character states) allowing users to begin with whatever observable characters are available to them when using photographs, a high-powered hand lens or a microscope.

An information sheet attached to each genus provides a list of known species and information on evolutionary relationships, distribution, habits, a simplified diagnosis, and some key references. A series of diagrams and photographs (of living specimens and of aspects of the morphology, including palps and epigynes) is provided for each genus.

Further information and instructions for using the key can be found in the document attached to ‘Salticidae’ in the top right hand quadrant of the key.

The key has been updated and revised in 2024 to include new genera and other information.

Please send comments, or suggestions for improving the key, and requests for assistance, to [email protected].

The key can be cited as Richardson, B.J., Whyte, R. and Żabka, M. (2024). A key to the genera of Australian jumping spiders (Aranaea: Salticidae). https://apps.lucidcentral.org/salticidae/

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Graham Milledge (AMS), Owen Seeman (QMB) and Julianne Waldock (WAMP) for the loan of essential specimens and to all the photographers who made their photographs available for the key (see legends), with special thanks to Iain Macaulay for the very large number of photos he provided. Thanks also go to Christine Richardson for her detailed editing of the text and assistance in preparing figures. We thank Liam Bromley, Volker Framenau, Mark Harvey, Graham Milledge, Barbara Patoleta, Mike Rix, Owen Seeman and Helen Smith for useful comments on draft versions of the key.

Software used:

Lucid v4 was used to construct and manage the identification key.

Fact Sheet Fusion v2.05.205 was used to create the fact sheets.

For more information on these tools please visit www.lucidcentral.org