Cryptic animals tend to spend most of their lives keeping still. The majority of predators, however, including those cryptically colored, are forced to move in order to find and approach their prey. For such predators visibility may be an important factor influencing predatory behavior. Therefore we can expect differences in the way they approach their prey on backgrounds with different camouflaging properties. To test this, we examined the behavior of Yllenus arenarius Menge 1868 (Araneae: Salticidae), a cryptically colored jumping spider, hunting leafhoppers on backgrounds matching and non-matching for the spiders. Juvenile and female Y. arenarius are cryptic on light sand, but males lose their cryptic coloration for this background after their final molt. We designed an experiment to determine if increased visibility of the spiders influenced their predatory behavior. We found that background color had a significant effect on jumping distance, approaching speed and predatory success. On the light background cryptic spiders attacked from closer distances, approached prey with faster speeds and had higher success than on the dark background. Differences in approaching speed between males before and after final molt suggest a combined effect of background color and ontogenetic change of body coloration on the predatory decisions of these male spiders.