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Kristin Barbieri's avatar

This is fantastic. I sure hope Charles jumps back into your view soon.

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Thanks, Kristin. And I hope you get such a visitor as well!

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Wild Heart Nature Connection's avatar

Jumping Spiders live in numerous places in my home. Sometimes, one walks across my monitor, sits atop a potted plant, or jumps from place to place on my kitchen table. One lived in my doorway between the door and the screen, as did her descendants for several years. I thoroughly enjoyed this read, thank you!!

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Oh, you've got some wonderful companions there, Linda. Here in Vermont, ours tend to visit spring into autumn -- something to look forward to in a few months!

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David Blistein's avatar

I've anthropomorphized my fair share of animate and inanimate objects over the years. This post made me wonder if they entomorphize us?

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

I like your angle (as usual)! Plants have certainly manipulated us to their benefit -- perhaps a kind of entomorphizing. (And you, of course, know and write well about being manipulated.)

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Adeline Nina Hofer's avatar

I think this community of Bryan fans should CROWD-$$OURCE A TRIP TO AUSTRALIA for Bryan!!!!!!!!!

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Sue Cloutier's avatar

I want to go too. After all the wild places we traveled, we never made it to that last continent on our list. I hope you get to go!

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

This is a whimsical and kind idea, about which I am sorta speechless, which, as a guy and writer sometimes too full of himself, is unusual for me. 😀

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Melissa Lee's avatar

I loved reading this article. Thank you Bryan, for making me see spiders in a different light.

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

You're most welcome, Melissa. I didn't admit in the essay that jumping spiders — and I've seen some larger species as well — have indeed helped me get over my own skittishness among spiders in general.

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Kollibri terre Sonnenblume's avatar

I ♥️ Jumping Spiders

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

... and I'm sure you speak well of them, no matter where they're from!

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Daniel Appleton's avatar

I had a tiny spider ( & I mean TRULY tiny ) living in between my window & the outer screen. I called him " Peter Parker " ( big Spiderman fan ). He vanished after a heavy blowing rainstorm. He didn't even have to pay rent.....

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

He might have paid rent by keeping tiny flies in check!

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Daniel Appleton's avatar

I kept hoping to hook him ( ? ) up with a spider named Mary Jane Watson.....

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Kasey Butcher Santana's avatar

I love jumping spiders. They really are so charming. Thank you for this story!

Our local Butterfly Pavilion has a jumping spider and I couldn't find it the last time we visited. The habitat had been moved to the gift shop because the clerks who work there wanted to have a creature with them too, and requested the jumping spider!

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Ha! That's great! There was so much more I could have written about these spiders in our lives. Some of them are purposefully kept as pets. I'm not sure how I feel about that (although I admit that I wouldn't mind keeping one myself). 😀

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Kasey Butcher Santana's avatar

I had a jumping spider living between the outer and inner covers on a beehive this summer and I was so tempted to make her a pet. I decided she deserved her freedom and then I think I saw her babies everywhere a month later. So, I also do not know how I feel about jumping spider pets, but I think the Butterfly Pavilion gets a pass because it’s for education and destigmatizing spiders.

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Agreed!

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Richard Fink's avatar

What a fine writer you are.

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Aw, shucks -- thanks. And what a fine human being you are (miss you both)!

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Sue Cloutier's avatar

There is joy in connection with wild things. Jumping spiders and slimes are currently favorites of mine.

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Hmmm. You've now got me thinking about slime molds! 😁

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Lor's avatar

Yes, do a post on Slime molds!

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Diana Van Buren's avatar

A Jumping spider would have been my first insect love if I could seen its face. One liked hanging out in my mailbox this summer.

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

I wonder if it was reading your mail -- with those eight eyes!

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Lindsay Hartley's avatar

Beautiful story and photos Bryan. Thanks for about Charles - jumping spiders are so neat!

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

They are indeed neat! And pert and perky? Thanks, Lindsay.

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Lindsay Hartley's avatar

Yes, very perky. lol. I shared your article with a spider loving friend, who tends to name the resident spiders in her house. I'm sure she'll love reading it.

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Timber Fox's avatar

These little jumping spiders have free rein in my house. Outdoors, I met a much larger (quarter-sized) Bold Jumping Spider who lived up to the name, hanging onto my beach towel until I managed to snag its trailing silk web on a nearby plant. They had no fear! So I left them to hunt in our garden.

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Yeah, Bold Jumping Spider is a wonderful companion -- I've had 'em in my house as well. I think it's the most common jumping spider species in North America.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/53809-Phidippus-audax

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Juliet Wilson's avatar

I love that you had such a relationship with Charles. I love the photos of all the different peacock spiders in the link!

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Those peacock spiders are incredible -- those are some of the most wonderful courtship displays among all arthropods.

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Juliet Wilson's avatar

I've just watched some of the videos, their courtship dispays are amazing.

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Felicity Martin's avatar

I enjoyed reading your experience with Charles. It just show how it pays to give detailed attention to small things.

The Peacock Spiders from Australia are amazing. They make me think that perhaps aboriginal artists found inspiration from their colours and patterns.

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

Very good point. Yes, how could they not be inspiration for artists and ceremony? There's another inspiration/angle on jumping spiders, which I'll write about at some point: various moth and butterfly species have wing markings that resemble jumping spiders, including the big eyes and forelegs, an adaptation against predation. It's amazing.

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Janis Adler's avatar

Count me among those who find spiders more unsettling that endearing but I enjoyed the post anyway. Question, why didn't Charles trigger the plants?

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

You'll fall for peacock spider courtship -- no doubt!

https://www.youtube.com/@Peacockspiderman

Good question the the plants. For the sticky tendrils of the sundews, at least my two species, he just walked all over them; I suspect his legs are strong enough not to get stuck. Those tendrils are way more effective on little weak flies (whose wings also get stuck).

As for the Venus Flytraps, it was amazing: he just ran all over the perimeter of the jaws, and never wandered into them. They get triggered to snap closed by action against little hairs lining the leaf traps. He just never walked among the hairs, sticking to the perimeter of each trap. I was really surprised.

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Janis Adler's avatar

Charles is/was pretty dang clever. Still not a fan of spiders but the peacock spider courtship dance was amazing. But after all that, it still seemed the female was unimpressed. Or did I miss the act itself?

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Bryan Pfeiffer's avatar

I haven't watched all the videos at the site (shame on me), but, yeah, sometimes the females aren't impressed at all. This is sexual selection at its finest (at least I think so). So the females can at times be choosy. And sometimes the copulations may be quick (and not even dinner and a movie before help change that).

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