Habronattus borealis (Banks, 1895) - Jumping Spider

J. H. Emerton (1847-1931) was one of the pioneers of North American arachnology. Although widely traveled, much of Emerton's field work was done near his home in upland and coastal areas of Essex Co., MA. Emerton's 1904 note in Psyche recounts his observations of Pellenes cristatus (Habronattus borealis). In June 1901 Emerton and George Peckham* were exploring the local salt marshes where they found many "red-faced" male Habronattus spiders and initially identified these as immature H. coecatus. Ultimately they determined the jumpers were sub-adult male H. borealis. The immature males of both species show red scaling on the clypeus (see videos). Adult male H. borealis, however, show no red scales while male H. coecatus retain the red clypeus when fully mature. More than a century after their work one can still find H. borealis in the same Essex County, Massachusetts coastal marshes visitred by Emerton and Peckham.
*George W. Peckham (1845-1914) and Elizabeth Peckham (1854-1940) established salticid studies in North America and coauthored their seminal work - Revision of the Attidae of North America.
Emerton 1904; Peckhams, 1909; Wikipedia - George and Elizabeth Peckham

• ♦ *J. H. Emerton - Pellenes cristatus - Essex (Ipswich) - Autumn, 1901 - Emerton in Psyche, 1904 Vol.11: 32
• ♦ E. B. Bryant/MCZ - H. borealis - Plymouth (Scituate) - June 1909 - Griswold, 1987: 105
• ♦ J. H. Emerton/MCZ - H. b. - Barnstable (Provincetown) September 1910 - Griswold, 1987: 105
• ♦ J. H. Emerton/MCZ - H. b. - Nantucket (Nantucket) - June 1928 - Griswold, 1987: 105
• ♦ J. H. Chamberlain/MCZ - H. b. - Norfolk (Wellesley) - Griswold, 1987: 105
• ♦ T. Murray - H. b. - Bristol (Westport) - October 2004 - BugGuide, node 38147
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• ♦ Connecticut - H. b. - Kaston, 1948: 467, 7 records
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*While Emerton uses Pellenes cristatus in the Psyche article both he and the Peckhams initially used the synonym Pellenes borealis (See Emerton, 1904 and 1909; Peckhams, 1909) before adopting H. borealis.

Griswold, C. E. 1987. A revision of the jumping spider genus Habronattus F.O.P. Cambridge (Araneae; Salticidae), with phenetic and cladistic analyses. University of California Publications, Entomology 107:1-344.