Look Who Visited Me Today

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(Edited)

Look who decided to visit me today.
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A daring jumping spider.

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It had been raining all day yesterday so I went on the balcony to check on the plants and I noticed a little critter looking in at me through the window.

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These little daring jumping spiders are very quick and hard to catch. Here you can see it has a little safety line web attached to the glass just in case it needs to repel off to safety somewhere.

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I figured this spider would be too quick to try and catch so I slid open the balcony door and watered the plants. Little did I know it decided to go between the sliding door and get caught inside the seal.

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HELLLP! I'm caught in the door seal....

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Eventually with a lot of hand waving and using a tiny twig I coaxed it out of the door seal and it ended up inside on the carpet. There was quite a bit of hopping around and me blocking it from escaping out of view before I finally caught it. These little guys rarely bite so they are easily handled and they even get used to being handled after a while.

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Once I caught it I let it go outside on my jade succulent. Now it can search for any insects out on the balcony again. It will hopefully guard against any mites or aphids.

I usually end up seeing one or two of these guys in the fall, for the rest of the year they are very tiny and take a while to grow. This one was large enough to be looking for a mate. Who knows maybe it will lay and egg sack and I'll have a balcony full of jumping spiders.

Here's video of one I kept as a pet a few years ago



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21 comments
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🌞
Wow..
Totally awesome photos and video...!!!
@sketch.and.jam
:-D

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They are cute little critters. Too bad they only live about a year, fortunately there are quite few around here to have as pets on my balcony.

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They really are cute little critters..!!
I haven't seen any. Maybe they see me first and quickly jump out of my sight.
:-))))

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Most species of them are really tiny even when full grown. These guys can get pretty big only about the size of the tip of your index finger. When I caught it, it ricocheted all over my hand until it finally calmed down. They end up covering you in their safety lines though.

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What a beautiful spider!
What kind of camera did you shoot it with? What was the lens like?

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Its an olympus e510 with a zukio macro lens. I didn't have time to put on the extension ring otherwise I could have gotten even closer shots, though at that close I would probably need to start stacking photos.

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Wow! He is adorable! Fantastic macro!

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I think it might be a she, the two little pedipalps in front of the fangs distinguish the males from the females. The males have big pedipalps. This gal was also pretty large compared to the males. I wish they lived long enough to keep as a pet, sadly they have only a year life-span and most of the time they are microscopic until they finish growing at the end of the year. They are good posers for the camera once you settle them down.

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This video is so funny. Really great macro shots. Have you ever flipped a lens?

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I haven't tried it yet. Do you know how it works with autofocus? Or would it basically just be manual focus to get it to work?

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what a buddy! The iridescence is neat, I didn't know they had that.

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I think they use the iridescence to distinguish each other from prey. They also do little dances to make sure they don't eat each other when they meet.

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