aspg-28-4115-1792155101 20261016125141 American Scientific Publishing Group admin@americaspg.com American Scientific Publishing Group Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Metaheuristics JAIM 2833-5597 2025 10 1 Ahmed Mohamed Zaki Hala B. Nafea Hossam El-Din Moustafa El-Sayed M. El-Kenawy The growing complexity of engineering optimization problems has revealed significant limitations in traditional mathematical programming approaches, necessitating the development of innovative metaheuristic algorithms capable of handling high-dimensional, multi-modal, and discontinuous objective functions. This paper presents the Somersaulting Spider Optimizer (SSO), a novel bio-inspired metaheuristic algorithm that draws inspiration from the extraordinary locomotion mechanisms of the somersaulting spider, a desert-dwelling arachnid species renowned for its acrobatic somersaulting capabilities. The proposed algorithm incorporates dual movement mechanisms that effectively balance global exploration through somersaulting behavior and local exploitation via controlled rolling movements. A distinctive feature of SSO is its adaptive energy-management system, which dynamically regulates exploration–exploitation transitions based on solution-improvement patterns and stagnation detection. Complementary adaptive parameters balance global search and local refinement throughout optimization. The algorithm was evaluated on four engineering design benchmarks: pressure vessel, welded beam, three-bar truss, and cantilever beam. Comparisons with the Genetic Algorithm (GA), Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO), and Bat Algorithm (BAT) report that SSO outperforms these methods on the test problems. ANOVA and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests assess the significance of the reported performance differences. The results identify SSO as an effective optimization method, with improvements in solution quality, convergence stability, and computational efficiency. 2025 37 47 4115 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 10.54216/JAIM.100105 https://www.americaspg.com/journal/28/article/4115 https://www.americaspg.com/storage/articles/manuscripts/01M4J3S9YDG314PDJ2S00S25NW.pdf