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Spiders

Meg is back

On the 9th day, I saw a familiar face staring at me from the bamboo fence.

Meg is back
Meg is a Bold Jumping Spider (Phidippus Audax)

After Meg sealed herself in a petal cocoon, I made a daily pilgrimage to check on her silky suite and make sure that it was still intact. I tried to peek inside, being careful to avoid any accidental contact with the plant. I was apprehensive for all the things that could go wrong during the molt: not enough humidity, too much humidity, predators… Fortunately, Betty (a common house spider) has her lair on the opposite side of Spider Alley, and she's not one to go hunting around.

For more than a week, all was still. The cocoon remained intact, and the excellent drainage testified to Meg’s structural design skills. 

But on the 9th day, as I slid past the Rose of Sharon into Spider Alley, I saw a familiar face, staring at me from the bamboo fence.

Would you notice Meg on the bamboo fence? For reference, the dome of a cutleaf is about 1 inch tall.

It was Meg! She had done it!

Wait, how can I be so sure it was Meg? Well, I only have circumstantial evidence, but here it is: first of all, she was right by the flower cocoon; second, she looked bigger (like one of my fingernails), although just as adorable as before.

Lastly, she was… fluffy, her hair-like scales fresh from the molt. The "fuzz" almost created a halo around her. Basically a puppy.

Jumping Spiders don't have to move their eyes to adjust their field of vision, because they can move their retina inside the eyes! I'm sure Meg was looking at me, here.

She must be Meg. I recognized her… But did she see me? And how did she see me?

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Jumping spiders have the best eyesight among spiders, and their “camera-like” eyes are quite similar to ours (as opposed to the compound eyes of say, butterflies); like us, they process much of their world visually. Their visual acuity is not too far behind us, either. Our vision is only 5-10 times better than theirs! And we definitely cannot see behind our backs, nor can we tell the position of the sun when it’s cloudy… but they can*.

There was no doubt that she saw me. She looked at me, and oriented herself to me, in the familiar way of vertebrates. Could she remember me from our first encounter?

Well, that’s a maybe. Jumping spiders can actually recognize an individual spider they have seen before**, but besides the anecdotal evidence of pet-spider keepers, it doesn’t look like anybody tested whether they can recognize individual humans. I bet they can recognize us, but why should they bother? We must be pretty uninteresting to them... unless of course we bring food offerings.

And as a personal contribution to the discussion, I can say that Meg recognized me… as a nuisance! She clearly noticed me, and although she didn’t seem startled or afraid, she repeatedly tried to escape my line of sight, jumped away, or turned her back on me.

Her unquestionable avoidance created some conflict. I wanted to take a picture that would do her justice, but at the same time I felt that I was close to becoming a paparazzi of the invertebrate world. Imagine how much energy you'd need to triple your body size, and then fasting until your fangs (and body) are hard enough to actually bite into anything... And now having to deal with someone shoving a camera and a flash in your face, when you're just trying to get some breakfast. I don't know about you, but "annoyed" is a total understatement.

I promised her a few times that this would be the last shot, and then I'd let her be. In reality, there were a number of “last shots”, partly because she refused to pose still for the camera, and partly because I am a little clumsy with this whole "macro" thing.

I could finally see the iridescent teal hue of her fang covers (chelicerae).

When she hid behind the bamboo, I figured that she was really done with the photoshoot.

Meg hiding behind the bamboo. Her silk-threading organs (spinnerets) are clearly visible on the tip of her abdomen (on the right).

I wished her safe hunting; but if she responded, I didn't hear it.

Elena Corriero

All photos shot handheld

OM 60mm, f16, 1/100, ISO 200 + Godox V350 & AK diffuser

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*Jumping spiders’ remarkable senses capture a world beyond our perception ◀️ This article discusses various aspects of jumping spider's vision and explains how their eyes work in a way similar to ours.
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**Individual recognition in a jumping spider ◀️ This study showed that jumping spiders can remember and recognize an individual jumping spider they’ve seen before. Upon a first encounter with a new individual, the spiders showed high curiosity and approach; these decreased progressively as they “met” again. The ability to recognize and individual - and not just recognize their sex or species - is considered a complex form of social knowledge, and offers additional evidence of the jumping spiders’ intelligence.

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