| Zygoballus electus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Zygoballus electus holotype (male) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Salticidae |
| Genus: | Zygoballus |
| Species: | Z. electus |
| Binomial name | |
| Zygoballus electus Chickering, 1946 [1] | |
Zygoballus electus is a species of jumping spider which occurs in Panama. [1] It was first described by the arachnologist Arthur M. Chickering in 1946. [1] The type specimens are housed at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in the United States. [2]
Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family Salticidae. As at 1 February 2019, this family contained 636 described genera and 6115 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all species. Jumping spiders have some of the best vision among arthropods and use it in courtship, hunting, and navigation. Although they normally move unobtrusively and fairly slowly, most species are capable of very agile jumps, notably when hunting, but sometimes in response to sudden threats or crossing long gaps. Both their book lungs and tracheal system are well-developed, and they use both systems. Jumping spiders are generally recognized by their eye pattern. All jumping spiders have four pairs of eyes, with the anterior median pair being particularly large.
Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Central America, bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half the country's 4 million people.
Arthur Merton Chickering was a U.S. arachnologist.
The species has been collected from several areas of Panama including El Valle de Antón, Portobelo, and Barro Colorado Island (Canal Zone Biological Area). [3]
El Valle de Antón, generally called El Valle, or Anton's Valley in English, is a town of 7,600 in the Coclé province of Panama.
Portobelo is a port city and corregimiento in Portobelo District, Colón Province, Panama with a population of 4,559 as of 2010. Established during the Spanish colonial period, it functions as the seat of Portobelo District. Located on the northern part of the Isthmus of Panama, it has a deep natural harbor and served as a center for silver exporting before the mid-eighteenth century and its destruction in 1739 during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
Barro Colorado Island (BCI) is located in the man-made Gatun Lake in the middle of the Panama Canal. The island was formed when the waters of the Chagres River were dammed to form the lake in 1913. When the waters rose, they covered a significant part of the existing tropical forest, but certain hilltops remained as islands in the middle of the lake. It has an area of 15.6 km2 (6.0 sq mi).
