Photo credits

The Embalse de Riano in northern Spain. The picture was taken by .... me!

Wednesday, August 20

Jumping spider

It was crawling over my screen at work. Despite my arachnophobia I tried to ignore it (it was only little), but eventually it became too much. As it became my focus, I naturally moved the mouse to it. As the arrow approached, the spider jumped away from it it. whihc just shows how freaky spiders are - they are far too intelligent. fascinating, but don't let them crawl on me!

Any way, if it is on a near-vertical screen, how does it jump to anothre place on the screen? Why does it not fall down when it launches itself off the screen? Are spiders exempt from the normal laws of physics?

Eventually I plucked up courage to move it. It was easy enough to coax into a little transparent rectangular plastic lid. I moved it to the carpet, noting firstly how brave I was to carry it without any kind of cover, and then how it was jumping around inside the lid and how much I wished it dd have a cover.

On the carpet, it made its way to the nearets cover - the bin. I forgot about it.

But then, just five minutes later - there it was again (unless there were two unusual jumping spiders on my screen at the same time!). This time I moved it to a plant pot 7 metres away, and it has not come back yet. Yet.

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