Took an utterly gratuitous mental health day (going down to the lake and looking at bold jumping spiders)

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #JumpingSpiders #spiders#Araneae #Salticidae

Here's video of the last jumping spider. When the giant alien object descending from the sky eludes your comprehension, just tilt your head and tap your pedipalps harder!

Yes, (at least some) jumping spiders tilt their heads when confused, just like dogs.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderVid #SpidersOfMastodon #JumpingSpiders #spiders#Araneae #Salticidae

@nev Which of those various pairs of dots on its head are its eyes?

@LillyHerself yes.

Okay seriously though, here's the same spider with the eyes highlighted. (The ones hidden from the camera are fainter in colour.) And a lighter-coloured jumping spider, since they may be easier to see on it.

The primary eyes are much keener and have colour vision, whereas the secondary eyes cannot see colour but are highly sensitive to movement. Together they give jumping spiders almost 360° vision.

This page is a great reference, albeit North American families only: https://bugguide.net/node/view/84423

Spider Eye Arrangements

An online resource devoted to North American insects, spiders and their kin, offering identification, images, and information.

@LillyHerself Also, because I simply cannot resist infodumping, here's one of my favourite charts, from Harland & Jackson's dated but still fun paper "'Eight-legged cats' and how they see" (2000) <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238671399>. Tl;dr: in general, the bigger the animal the better its eyes are, but jumping spiders punch way above their weight, with a visual acuity-to-body size ratio similar to freaking *flying animals* like flies and birds!