I mostly get phidippus johnsoni in my house and when I see one I always yell “HELLO PHIDIPPUS!! ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME BEING A JUMPING SPIDER?? YES YOU ARE!! YES YOU ARE!!” And sometimes they wave back at me.
Jumping spiders are so cute. One time I was at a picnic table at a park having a soda, and every time I set it down this little green jumping spider would come over and drink from the condensation. Then would back up when I picked it up to drink, come back when I set it down. It was delightful & magical.
Edit: One time, I was at my in-laws' house and there was this bigass fly none of us could swat. Little shit legit dodged a fly swatter. But I spotted a zebra jumping spider hanging out in the window. So I ended up herding annoying!fly into that window, and suddenly BAM. Spider fren got a meal the size of herself, and we had no more annoying fly. Teamwork.
I love my little zebra jumpers! I often think of them as pets and try to give them a good life. Sometimes I move them to where some food is. Relatively harmless and playful.
I was sitting on a picnic table at my kids soccer fields and a little jumping spider was crawling around on the table. It actually came over to me so I put my finger out and it didn’t shy away but like touched me and then just hung out around.
I actually wanted to take it home.
And ya I’m over 50yo haha, so I left it alone as the adult thing to do.
No matter how many of these “spiders are actually cute” posts I see I simply cannot be convinced that they’re cute. Macro lenses don’t make them look any less horrifying to me.
