Like the character Count Dracula and his real-life vampire bat counterparts, a small, East African jumping spider has a taste for blood, according to a recent study. The spider, Evarcha culicivora, lacks the ability to pierce skin and to sip blood, so instead it feeds indirectly on blood by choosing, as its preferred meal, female mosquitoes that have just engorged themselves with a victim's blood. The blood-hungry spider is the first predator ever identified that selects its prey based upon what the prey just ate. Similar to a protein shake, blood can be a highly nutritious drink that goes down smoothly. "Perhaps blood is a ready-made nutrient-rich liquid meal for which minimal energy expenditure in terms of processing is needed," said Ximena Nelson, lead author of the study, published in a recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nelson, a scientist at Macquarie University in Australia, and her team conducted a food preference test with Evarcha culicivora serving as the critic. They first put the spider in a glass vial so that it could not smell prey choices, which were a mixture of male mosquitoes that do not consume blood, female mosquitoes fed a sugar concoction and female mosquitoes that had just feasted on blood. Using sight alone, the spider always chose the blood-engorged females, who looked fat and somewhat red.

View: Full Article | Source: Discovery Channel

Its not the fact that its a spider that bothers me but the fact that it can jump

I watched a documentary on Discovery a month or so ago, they placed jumping spiders infront of a projection screen in the lab and showed them different pictures, when a picture of their pray was shown, the spiders jumped at the screen. Incredible distance they covered.

I hope they dont evolve to quickly, as it has'nt been ruled out. Its possible they have fed on humans or larger animals, but just has'nt been reported yet

Just in time for Halloween LOL. Watch ouuuuuut Spidey's gone bloodthirsty

lol, if the female mosquito fed on a human, the spider has too. but you dont need to panic, it can't peirce skin for blood, it has to use another method - catching mosquitos -.
plus, about it evolving, it not be for another millenia for a noticable dramatic change, besides its got no reason to grow larger, its prey are small and so it can stay small, no need to get any larger.

heh, but the biggest spider (cant remember its name) can eat birds

The Goliath (Bird Eating Spider)

The Pink Goliath is the largest.

Great. I wake up and this is one of the first things I see. Hopefully, they won't invade America any time soon...

stranger then fiction.

HAHAHA yay! i was wondering a week ago if there was any spiders that do this type of feeding, and BAM! i get information on it here!...and now i still wonder if there are any spiders that fly...and would those be related to the ones that are claimed to create "angel hair" on grass and such?

whoops rambling..protien shake?..*runs to the kitchen*

Very interesting indeed. Too bad we dont have these spiders down here as it is closing in on Summer when the Mosquitos are out in force!
Then again we do already have far too many spiders already!

don't worr, spiders can't get much bigger than they are now, simply because it would be physically impossible for their passive internal systems to work.

Jumping spiders are actually some of the friendliest spiders around. They don't bite humans (can't pierce the skin) and some of the larger ones are known to make good pets.

friendly maybe but good pets? I prefer a dog or a cat

Can you just picture your giant jumping spider running up to greet you, wagging it's abdomen and drooling? Just like Dino!

I could use a few of those over here!

I agree with Arsenik, anything that eats mosquitos is a good thing. H*ll, if they'd let me, I'd breed the d*mned things in my back yard! It would be an Arachni-ranch!
As silly as that sounds, just think about all the diseases that mosquitos carry. I still think that they can carry AIDS. I don't care what the Governmment says. Nonetheless, I'd buy this spider a Bloody Mary next time I see one.

But don't worry about mosquitos, they cannot transmit AIDS.

hey u guys want to see a big spider google image the camel spider.