Care & Husbandry
How we raise your jumping spider, from the first day to the day it ships.
At Heritage Regals, our females are always paired with males from a separate bloodline. This ensures genetic diversity holds strong in every generation. Inbred spiders often fail to thrive, resulting in a lower survival rate to adulthood.
Your spider's ancestry is documented and visible in full in the lineage archive, and every record reaches back to the founding generation.
We separate every spiderling at emergence and raise it in its own enclosure, so none compete for food or space. That is also the day its record begins: hatch date, lay date, mother and father (when available), and every molt from then on. The record travels with the spider and passes to its keeper when they register ownership after adoption.
P. regius live in trees and feel secure with height. Their enclosures are tall rather than wide with cross ventilation to provide healthy airflow.
We monitor temperature and humidity around the clock. Temperature is kept between 69 and 83°F, close to their native climate. Humidity is kept between 60 and 80%, and raised to 80 to 90% as a molt approaches. This helps our spiders maintain hydration and shed cleanly.
We feed on demand, not on a schedule. This prevents overfeeding and follows the spider's natural rhythm. Prey is sized to the current instar and is never longer than the spider's body. Feeders include melanogaster and hydei fruit flies, mealworms, and blue bottle flies.
We never hand feed. Each spider hunts for itself from the start.
Regals build trust through neutral reinforcement and a calm, consistent routine. Our spiders receive daily visual and vocal interaction, paired with twice per week handling opportunities.
Before any spider goes home, we confirm it hunts on its own, is confident and settled, has reached a minimum of Instar 6, and is not in premolt.
In following these practices, we've learned Phidippus regius body language. Check out our Jumping Spider Care Guide for more info on safe handling and behavior recognition.
Now and then, a spider has a difficult molt and loses a leg. When that happens, we watch it closely through recovery and offer smaller prey more often, so every meal is an easy catch.
When it is well fed and ready, its next molt brings the leg back. We call these baby legs, because they come in smaller. After one more molt, the leg is full size and the spider is as good as new.