Phidippus regius Soroa

There's a moment, when a Phidippus regius "Soroa" male turns to face you and his chelicerae catch the light, that explains why jumping spiders have pulled so many keepers sideways out of the tarantula hobby. Those mouthparts flash deep metallic blue-green, an iridescence that shifts as he moves, set against a black body and white-banded legs. This is the Soroa form from Pinar del Río province in western Cuba — humid forest and rocky terrain that produced one of the more distinctive colour expressions the species offers. Females wear quieter tones — grey, brown, and cream — with the patterned opisthosoma typical of the genus. Adults reach 15–18 mm in body length.

Everything you'd want from Phidippus regius is here: diurnal, sharp-eyed, hunting by vision across distances many times its own body length. Unlike most spiders, this one watches you back — tracking movement at the glass, swivelling to follow your finger, approaching prey with the measured confidence of an animal that trusts its own eyes. Venom is mild and bites are rare. The real spectacle is courtship: a male raises his pedipalps, drums rhythmically against the substrate, and rocks his opisthosoma through a full display sequence. That's when the Soroa locality earns its name — metallic chelicerae in motion, flashing with every beat. Few sights in the hobby reward close watching quite like it.

A vertical enclosure of roughly 15 × 15 × 20 cm suits an adult. Give it a retreat high up — cork bark, a cork tube, or artificial foliage — over 2–3 cm of coconut fibre kept moderately damp but never wet. Mist the walls regularly so humidity is present without the interior ever feeling saturated. Room temperature, around 22–26°C, is fine. Offer feeder insects sized to the spider as it grows.

Phidippus regius "Soroa" is a locality choice — picked on purpose, not by default. The husbandry is about as forgiving as the genus gets, which makes it an easy first jumping spider and an equally satisfying named addition to a shelf of regional forms. Watch a Soroa male run his courtship just once and unlocalised stock tends to lose its pull; those chelicerae in motion have a way of setting the standard everything else gets measured against.