While the male is strikingly red on top, with a black band in the frontal eye region and sometimes with white setae on the forelegs, the female is of a rather inconspicuous brown color.

It is one of the species of jumping spiders which are mimics of mutillid wasps (commonly known as "velvet ants"); several species of these wasps are similar in size and coloration, and possess a very painful sting.

[1] Phidippus whitmani occurs in the United States and Canada.

The species was named after zoologist Charles Otis Whitman.

This article related to jumping spiders (Salticidae) is a stub.