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This darling little brown jumping spider is an adult female Messua limbata, the only species of Messua found in North America. Both males and females are about the same size, 5mm or so, and these spiders range from California to Arizona, as well as “Texas to Mexico”, which apparently also includes Florida.

The kind people of the Salticidae Facebook group identified her for me, so if you have an alternative suggestion, please let me know! She’s up on iNaturalist, but as of this writing no-one has come forward yet. Bugguide has a photo of an M. limbata which looks almost identical to this young lady, but of course I am just a crazy person with a camera — what do I know? She was a very polite spider but was not carrying any I.D.

She’s the first truly iridescent jumping spider I’ve seen — she is shiny blue-green on her carapace and abdomen. I am including the last terrible, blurry photo in the hopes that it will aid identification for somebody, and because it was the photo that best shows off her delightful, shiny hiney 😀

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Here’s another, similar female from a month or so later — a little bigger, a little less green, but still quite iridescent in the abdomen. Again, making my best guess based on size, location, and similar images on bugguide. Here’s her iNaturalist link.

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