Highest-living spider

The highest-living spider is a species of jumping spider belonging to the taxonomic family Salticidae and which in 1924 was found living at a height of 6,700 m on Mount Everest in Nepal. Its discoverer was naturalist and explorer R. W. G. Hingston, who collected some specimens of this spider that he found there, living under stones frozen to the ground. It proved to be a hitherto-unknown species, which in 1975 finally was formally described and named the Himalayan jumping spider Euophrys omnisuperstes, aptly translating as "highest of all".

It is believed that this exceptionally high-altitude spider species feeds on tiny creatures such as springtails and minute dipteran flies that have been blown up by the wind from lower altitudes to these great heights where it lives.