Toni Steffens

There are more than 50 subspecies of the Australian jumping spider. Each one of them has their own unique dance routing, performed by the male spider under the judgmental eyes of its female chosen one. The female assesses the dancer and chooses to be either mounted, simply walks away with disinterest, or kills and eats the male dancing lover. At times, she even chooses for a combination of those scenarios. It is assumed that the dancing behaviour is genetically hardwired, rather than “learned”, making the jumping spider a natural born dancer. Certain studies show that female spiders of the jumping spider species Portia however also dance. They do so not in order to seduce their potential mates, but instead mimic the males dancing routine, to protect their nest or wear off other spiders. So while the male spider pursues dancing as a flamboyant act of seduction, with the hope to inseminate the female at the risk of life, the female spider learns, masters and even perfects the males dance routines, using improvisation and trick movements, like unexpected pauses in the routine to ensure her peace of mind, her own life and/or that of her offspring. Wether for war fare or intercourse, dancing comes into play as a decisive moment in a spiders life. A tool, a weapon, a communicator, a trickery and a mastery. While the male spider dancing its courtship dance has been plentiful documented, the female spiders dancing behaviour and how it came to do so is still subject to debate. May it be perhaps, that the female spider is the ultimate dancer in disguise? Is it not her who has the final saying over the life and death performance of her potential lover? And isn’t it though her perfecting the choreographic steps, enabling her to protect her own offspring, that she is elevated into being ultimate judge over wether his hardwired dance that she’s ought to pass on to the following generation, is even worthy enough of her own craftsmanship, and the way how she reverse engineered his dance moves to turn them from a flirt into a fight?