One of the reasons I got obsessively into wildlife was my absolute fascination with jumping spiders. I would watch video after video after video about them, and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children Of Time was also a big part of it. That’s a book about how jumping spiders are given a virus that gives them higher intelligence so they can build human like technologies but ultimately they still think like a spider, it’s great, read it!
But, jumping spiders eluded me so much that, i saw all manner of animals that one might assume were harder to see first. Technically, I got my first sighting of a jumping spider only a few weeks into my wildlife adventure, but the photo was so bad that I wondered, “Does this even count?”
These kind of photos give you a temporary kind of enjoyment, like “YAAAAAAAY in a technical sense I’ve seen a jumping spider!” but after a short time you just want a proper photo. This photo came about because I was sitting in my backyard, and I saw the jumping spider scurrying along one of the plant boxes. I took a quick photo with my camera phone, and then ran upstairs to get my proper camera, but sadly, when I came back, the spider was gone.
And that was my first encounter, if you want to call a horribly blurry out of focus photo an encounter, and it would be my last for quite a long time. I saw all manner of animals since then, some as, or arguably more, difficult to find than the jumping spider, but sadly, this elusive little arachnid kept hiding from me!
And then, all of a sudden, my luck changed. Instead of the jumping spiders always hiding from me, one started visiting me!
So I begun my wildlife adventure in April 2024, and finally, in March, almost a year in, I had my first proper encounter with a zebra jumping spider. The photo at the top of this blogpost was taken at around the same time as this photo here. It feels weird that I saw a kingfisher before I properly saw a jumping spider, it’s like the way humanity first saw the planet Uranus before it first saw Antarctica. It’s exactly like that, that analogy tracks perfectly.
But wildlife can be weird. I spent so long searching for a jumping spider, cursing cruel fate that I couldn’t find one, and now, one just literally takes a stroll over my patio table!
That’s why I always have the camera ready, even when I’m just sitting out the back, with no real intention of doing any wildlife photography, because you never know when that jumping spider is going to show up!
Here they are again. It was a scorching hot day, so I had the camera and my Tascam (for any birds that I might record) under a towel to protect them from the heat, and the jumping spider started going on an adventure across the towel!
A lot of people are afraid of spiders. I don’t really have those feelings, but there are some instances when I can understand it. Sometimes, I can feel a slight itching sensation on my skin, and sometimes when I realize it’s because there’s a spider there, it’s really unpleasant. It depends though, sometimes I can quite happily have a spider on my arm or my hand and it doesn’t faze me, but other times not so much. While I’m generally not afraid of spiders, a lot of people are, and a lot of people hate spiders. Perhaps this is some sort of evolutionary adaptation, some spiders are dangerous, and perhaps it makes more survival sense to fear them all then to be comfortable around them all and risk getting near one of the ones that are dangerous. Or perhaps it’s because (this doesn’t apply to jumping spiders as I’ll discuss) their eyes tend to be really tiny, often difficult to see, so with other animals with more prominent eyes, you can more easily project human emotions onto them, but with spiders, often, you’re just confronted with, how alien they are.
For example, here’s a photo of a goldenrod crab spider I took in June last year.
Now to me, goldenrod crab spiders are adorable little things. I don’t know if that comes from being around animals so much that I came to appreciate the beauty in even the weird looking ones, but I think they’re so so cute! But at the same time, look at that face. It’s a face that says, “I am not like you human, deal with it!” With birds, and even with some of the insects, like bees, you are often talking about animals with really big eyes, and the bombus terrestris bees look like they’re wearing a big woolly jumper and it’s adorable!
But with most spiders, it’s just, “Human, nothing about me is designed to make you feel comfortable in any way.”
And the obvious exception to that of course, is the jumping spider. Jumping spiders are probably the only spider that a lot of people think is cute. People who hate spiders might often make an exception for this one. I think part of this is the quite beautiful patterns they often have on their skin, but I think the main reason is, those really big eyes!
I mean, it’s a spider with all the cuteness of a kitten! Humans seem to like big eyes, maybe it’s because animals with big eyes remind us a bit of ourselves, us being fairly big eyed creatures. But, as you would expect, those big eyes mean excellent vision. Have a look at this awesome video on jumping spider vision.
They have eight eyes. The other six eyes, not the two big ones, are simple motion detectors. If something moves behind the spider, the simple motion detector eyes will see the object, but not very well, but it’s enough for the spider to turn around and examine the object with their two big eyes. It has been said that jumping spider vision is so good that they can see the moon. But, something that has been a point of fascination with me for ages is that jumping spiders can mostly definitely see us.
I had heard many times that when you’re looking at a jumping spider, they all of a sudden turn around, and look at you. It was fascinating to think about, two sentient creatures, just looking at each other, studying each other. And I wanted to experience that moment myself, and in the photo above, I kind of captured that on camera. I say “kind of” because technically speaking, in this photo the jumping spider is looking at the camera, not me.
It’s quite an amazing moment. If you encounter a fox, or a bird, or a rabbit, they just take off usually, and this is quite a good survival strategy for them. But the tiny, vulnerable jumping spider, just stares at you, instead of running away, they stand motionless, and just stare at the giant creature that’s in front of them.
When I’m looking at a jumping spider, I’m most definitely experiencing wonder. And, when the spider looks back at me (or at least the camera), are they experiencing wonder?
The first place my brain goes is, don’t anthropomorphize! And this is a really good rule of thumb that has served me well. When people feed the birds it’s impossible to tell whether any of the specific birds actually like the person doing the feeding or whether or not they just see them as a vending machine. But I think the equal and opposite danger to anthropomorphizing animals is alienising them too much. I just invented a new word. There are ways that they are like us. Pigeons show affection to their mates that often reminds you of a human couple. Many animals, of many different species, will become angry if they believe you’re a threat to their children. They’re not humans, but they’re not aliens either. In some ways, they couldn’t be more different, but in other ways, they’re like us.
So, when the jumping spider stares back at you, are they experiencing curiosity or wonder? My thoughts on it are, they’re not scared of you, that’s why they don’t run away. They don’t intend to try and eat you, otherwise they would just attempt to do that quickly instead of taking their time. So, one possibility is that, they are amazed by the giant biped that is in front of them.
Or it could be that they are just trying to figure out will anything be achieved by jumping onto you. They are jumping spiders after all!
Ponderings Of An Autist 