For all male spiders it is dangerous to seek a mate. The female spider may not realize that the male is a spider of her kind, so she may try to eat it. The jumping spiders not only have visual patterns that identify them to each other, but the male jumping spider will do a special dance when it approaches a female of the same species. That way, the female can recognize that it is a male of her species. She will generally forget about eating for long enough to mate with the visiting male spider.