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Jumping Spider Dances: sexual selection helps give rise to new species

Because the formation of new species can take hundreds to thousands of years, it can be very difficult to catch a species "in the act" of splitting into new species. Researchers here at the University of Arizona, however, have found just such a case of incipient speciation in a group of jumping spiders that live on the mountains of southeastern Arizona.

These mountains are called the "sky islands" because they are like islands of lush, wooded vegetation surrounded by a sea of arid desert.

 

Right: thumbnail map of the sky islands; dots show localities where jumping spiders were collected. Click on map for a larger (18kb) version.

map of mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona
Copyright © 2000 The Society for the Study of Evolution. All rights reserved.  


The mountain ranges in gray are home to the species Habronattus pugillis, the subject of the study. Although the females are identical across the different mountains, the males on each mountain range show striking differences in coloration, ornamentation, and courtship displays.

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