Question

I love jumping spiders. Of all the arachnid group, those little guys show personality. Anyway, what this is leading up to is a story about my being impressed by one of my tiny spider athletes. There are a few families of them that have taken up residence here. They don't usually live longer than a year, so I know every year it's a new crop, but I gave my visitors names in the beginning. I don't change those names year to year. That way I can think of them as old friends.

Anyway, they occasionally crawl up and perch on my shoulder to make sure I'm working, but their normal positions are cruising the top of my monitor or perching atop the antennas on my wireless modum. A few years ago, I was witness to something that any photographer would give their right arm and first born to capture, and Natural Geographic would pay a small fortune for.

One of the little guys was cruising the monitor and caught my attention when he came to an abrupt halt. There was a fly making his rounds and that spider kept a few eyes on it for the better part of 5 minutes. What happened next proved to me that there is a brain in that tiny head.

The fly made a pass by the screen and Leonard, the spider, executed a jump that was at least 3 inches, grabbed the fly in mid flight, and the two of them plopped down on my desk. The fly, of course, was a goner. Now, think about this. Leonard had to calculate the fly's speed and course, determine the precise time to jump, exactly how hard, and consider the size of its prey. My respect for the jumpers went up several notches when that happened.

#friends

evidentialist 8

Answer 1

Have always dug these little guys. The way they almost seem to glitch from place to place, little quantum leaps where they arrive at their destination seemingly without passing through the intervening space. Lots of them around where I grew up about 100 miles south of Sydney.
But then again, Australia plays host to the funkiest members of the jumping spider clan - the peacock spiders. I think they are mother nature's way of making up for all the giant, hairy, venom-dripping aggressive bastard spiders she blessed us with.

Answer 2

They're really rather lovely, aren't they? They seem to take an interest in us, too - if you place your hands either side of your face to mimic a spider's palps, sometimes they'll signal back to you.

I caught one in my bathroom earlier today and placed it outside on the window ledge. Rather than leaping in any direction to escape, running for cover or playing dead like most spiders would, it turned around and looked right back at me - perhaps it understood that it had been saved and wasn't in danger.

Answer 3

When I was teaching there were some that lived on my window sill snatching tiny things that could come through the screen. I wouldn't allow the students to harm them.
Nope, not a science teacher. English.


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