Yesterday the kids found a bold jumping spider outside. Science lesson time! We caught it & put it in a little terrarium. They are fuzzy and have iridescent chelicerae. Phiddipus audax! They have 8 eyes and are amazing hunters. We’ve all been intently observing “Mr Bluey” n/1

And the kids were so enthused (and me too) we decided to keep him overnight. He spun a little web shelter to hunker down in. Evidently they are active during the day, and typically have a bit of silk/web they keep as a “lifeline” when they jump off or after. n/2

This morning we caught a fly & put it in our terrarium w “Bluey” (my 4 yr old’s named him) We watched intently but the fly walked about w impunity, and Bluey appeared to be indifferent at best and outright unaware at worst, seemed to tend to his web and lines w/out interest n/3

Here’s a video of Bluey not caring. The fly would walk by and Bluey wouldn’t even acknowledge it. n/4

Well, our indifferent friend decided that tasty fly was indeed worth the effort. And when we weren’t watching, things went down. And now Bluey is having a delicious breakfast, my kids are freaking about how awesome this is, and I love being an ecologist. We’ll release him soon.

And here are some closeups for those interested...gross for some but pretty cool for others.