It’s a trapdoor spider! They have a network of webbing along the ground around their tunnel, and they keep their feets on it so they can feel if something is nearby. If a bug is unlucky enough to come within grabbing range, they pop out and snag it, then duck back into their door.
Bold Jumping Spider, Phidippus audax. My favorite jumping spider. First learned about them/fell in love with them when a curious one found its way into my house and played tag with me while I was writing my thesis last summer: Video 1 [link] Video 2 [link] Video 3[link]
This morning I found a beautiful bold jumper had passed away on the window outside. I brought her in and put her under the microscope. Observe the full rainbow on the chelicera–typically only the blue/green tones come out in life. Also, look for the eyes on the side of the cephalothorax (basically, they’re where our ears are).
I believe I saw this spider alive a week ago (first full-body photo). When I collected her this morning, a smaller jumping spider (a male?) came up to her to look. I try not to anthropomorphize but it’s hard to stare at a face with two big giant eyes that stare back at you and WATCH YOU like jumping spiders do. Anyway, I let him pay his respects before I brought her inside.
For how colorful and flamboyant jumping spiders are, they are typically very very small. Very small. Like, one or two grains of rice small. But bold jumpers get BIG. Check out the bottom photo: biggest bold jumper I’ve ever seen. She was at least 3 cm long. Hard to get a good photo of her–apparently that’s how you live long enough to get huge like that.
Tarantulas in media: great big vicious monsters, insatiable appetites, super deadly, ultra predators, terrifying soulless beasts
Tarantulas in real life: fragile, soft-bellied, eat your dinner or just fucking molt already it’s not that hard, ‘I’m fasting for religious reasons that I’m not going to explain and your offerings of crickets offend me’, ‘oooh nooo I stepped in my water dish and now my foot’s wet I’m going to climb up the glass to sulk about it and if I fall I might DIE and THEN you’ll be sorry’, will yank out ass hair when angry, arches up on tiptoes to avoid belly being touched by passing cricket, might hurt self on own skeleton, leave scraps of web lying around for no reason, constant maladaptive daydreaming, the stoners of the spider world
‘care guides say I like to burrow but nah, I just like making messy piles with substrate and then knocking them over like a child with sandcastles’
also featuring: ‘this plant has been with me for ten years, time to have a sudden mood change and spend an entire night ripping it out and destroying it’ and ‘thanks for putting water in my vivarium i will now continue to shovel earth into it at every opportunity’, ‘i am a vicious predator and- oh no is that a woodlouse crawling over my foot oh no ew better go and sit on top of my cave ew’, ‘hello pesky HUMAN can you please take out these old leaves i found i wrapped them up into a nice bundle for you and put them in the corner i dont like them TAKE THEM OUT’ and, my forever favourite: ‘ohhhh this thermometer looks nice. it’s round. it’s pretty. I WILL WRAP ALL MY LEGS AROUND IT WHILST CLIMBING AND- oh. oh im sliding. it’s coming off. oh. WHY AM I ON MY BACK. OH.’
I’m reading this and I would still kill a tarantula if it got anywhere near me.
cool then don’t come to my house and don’t add on to my posts
“lol let’s talk about how silly our supposedly scary pets are”
“hey I’d kill your pets”
^don’t do that. I don’t care if a gang of tarantulas ate your mother, keep your negativity off of people’s happy posts about their pets.
today i learned that the people who were like let’s give drugs to spiders and see what happens in the 90s were the same who back in the 70s decided to send spiders into space and see what happens. so they did. they did that. they sent two spiders named anita and arabella (aw!) and what happened was at first they built really shitty webs in zero gravity to the surprise of exactly no one. but a couple of days later they took those embarrassing messes down and built nicer webs. when they died they were put in the smithsonian and you can go see their tiny spider carcasses if that’s a thing you want to do.
also they brought a jumping spider on the international space station and it did fine, just. hanging around. being a jumping spider in zero gravity. then they brought it back to earth to see what it would do and what it did was it kept falling on its ass when trying to jump. you can see a bit of it here if that’s also a thing you want to do.
@fearthekeira we’re getting you out of Australia, mom
LMFAOOOOO oh come on, Australia is fucking awesome!! And all of these things are parts that make it so awesome!
Hey. If it makes you feel better, I’ve survived 25 years down here. And even more than that, I’m like 4th or 5th generation Aussie! Which means my ancestors are tough as shit too!! So if my family can do it, you can too! 😀
lol… I’m pretty sure the only non-deadly thing here is the Sugar Glider…
nawwww look at it!
…plus, we gave the world Chris Hemsworth… you’re welcome!
i demand to know why that spider is not called something like facehuggerius scaretheshitoutofyous
Which one? The one that leaps off the wall – that one is pretty big – probably a bird-eating spider…
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 