The Portia Spider (Salticidae)

It takes the lead in the often macabre predator-prey dance with breathtaking cunning and relentless efficiency and will do whatever it takes to see the union end in grisly death, seldom its own.

It is one of nature's most efficient serial killers, and it is no larger than a button on a man's dress shirt.

According to Kefyn Catley, arachnologist and educator at the American Museum of Natural History, this is “the weirdest spider of all.” A member of the family Salticidae, of which about fifteen species are found in Africa, Australia, China, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Vietnam, Portia is a jumping spider. Catley describes it as “a cross between the monster from the black lagoon and a space alien.”

Unlike most jumping spiders, which prey on insects, Portia uses deception and mimicry, to catch and eat other spiders. It’s a cryptic spider and an aggressive mimic, meaning that it imitates something its intended victim finds attractive. Resembling a bunch of torn, dead leaves, Portia enters a spider's web and creeps up on its victim almost imperceptibly, though it moves quickly when the wind blows. It also plucks the web to imitate a captured insect. Then, when the resident spider approaches Portia lunges in for the kill. Just how this animal with its tiny central nervous system has learned this complex repertoire of predatory behavior has stumped scientists for years.