Aww, jumping spiders are spider bros. They are surprisingly smart. Them and wolf spiders get free roam of my house and garden.
They are so smart. You can keep jumping spiders as pets and they exhibit social behaviors with humans, even ones in the wild are able to learn specific people and will just chill with you.
I like to befriend them and let them play by jumping around my fingers.
The only spiders I kill are the yellow sac spiders because they will bite you in your sleep and cause a nasty infection. It happened to me once.
Brown recluses and black widows are instant squish (both are prevalent here). I didn't even know about yellow sac spiders (we apparently have those too) but they look close enough to brown recluses that they are fortunately/unfortunately going to meet the same fate.
I'm disappointed that I don't have many orb weavers this year.
Edit: Big black widow I found at work a couple weeks ago (where I was sticking my hands).
But why black widows? They are super useful at pest control and like all spiders just leave them be and they want nothing to do with you.
They're only included because they sometimes live in spaces I'm having to blindly stick my arm in. And we just don't have the kind of trust. I probably just need to get some elbow length gloves for when I feel their webs (it feels different than other spider webs).
Ugh I've never encountered a black widow, but I just felt that sentence.
I think recluses and widows do sometimes live around here in NJ, but I haven't seen any yet. Regardless, I'm ready for them.
Spiders can stay if they survive my cats.
Yeah, I try to teach them which spiders are good and bad. But at the end of the day, they are indiscriminate killers. Jumping spiders are usually smart enough to stay back. You can watch them watching the cats.
Nature and Gardening
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