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This is my fourth page of information I've found about spiders. Most of these pictures were taken at Brazos Bend State Park. I hope that, like me, the next time you see a spider
(and they are almost everywhere), you'll take a second to admire their form and function.  On this page, we have the jumping spiders, or Salticidae.

12/03/2023  Brazos Bend State Park  It is not within my abilities to share how wonderful a visit to the park can be. I often see more in a single day than I could fit onto a 
single update to this...whatever it is I've been doing.  I try to share observations new to me, or novel updates to what I've shared before.  Sometimes, I can't possibly the
full scope of what I've seen, so I don't even try. But other times, I try anyway.  This is one of those times.
When I approached the Southeast bend of the 40 Acre Lake trail (about 8:20am), the low morning sunlight brightened the dew caught by silk webs.  I can only guess at
the species of spider that was on the web; possibly an Arabesque Orbweaver  Neoscona arabesca; but there are a number of orbwevars with "chunky" bodies here. 
(While this is not a jumping spider, I'm leaving it on this with the rest of the observations)
    

That was amazing! But then, I got to the Spillway Trail, near the Observation Tower.  I stared, awestruck, at the view to the Southeast. The entire area was alight with silver!
It looked like ice--but it wasn't. It was all silk webbing covered with dew! I took pictures, but couldn't capture the distance covered by this phenomenon.  Tried to, anyway.
   

I was standing on the Spillway Trail. The "scrub" growth starts about 40 yards away.  I could only use camera zoom to add details. I call this "silk" in general, because--
although I suspect that it was made by spiders--I have no way to verify the source. I finally continued down the trail, where I spent hours near the mother gator and her
pod of baby alligators (as shown on my page here).  As the day progressed, streamers of silk flew everywhere. While I tried looking at them for spider inhabitants (since
I'd thought that the silk was actually made by "ballooning" spiders), I didn't find any. However, over the hours, I discovered 4 or 5 spiders upon me. Usually, I either picked
them up by the their web and hung them from a tree.  I tried taking pictures of one of the spiders--which was not as easy as one might think. I usually have hardware hanging
off of me, and also carry a six-foot staff. So, juggling a single camera with one hand to capture a critter on the other was a bit tricky. I got it, though.
   

The images below are cropped, from images taken with my usual settings.  I can tell it's one of the "jumping spiders", and it has a brilliant metallic color.  After poking
around a bit on the Internet (and looking in Common Spiders of North America by Richard A. Bradley ©2013); I think it could be either a :  Bronze Jumping Spider
 Eris militaris , or Thin-Spined Jumping Spider Tutelina elegans. But--I can't make out any markings on the spider. This could be due to it being so young. Anyway, I know
it is a jumping spider.
   

After letting it try to tell time, I also release it to a nearby tree. When I returned to the Tower, about 3pm, the dew was gone, but a lot of the silk webbing was still there.  
When I see so much silk, I wonder how it was produced.  Spider silk is manufactured in a spider's body, and requires metabolic energy and chemicals to produce. It costs
a spider to make it. What would motivate spiders (if it was spiders) to produce so much silk? Was it all for transportation, and just got tangled?  Was it set out to trap prey?
In 2007, there was a massive community spider web at Lake Tawokoni State Park. It made the news in a few places. The manager of the park at the time was a
previous employee of BBSP, so we got pictures directly from the park.  That turned out to be a collection of long-jawed orbweavers (Tetragnathus) if I recall correctly.
The webs in that case were up in trees, and did catch many insects. In our case, the event seemed more ephemeral.
   

Material filmed May-June 2006 (update 05/25/2020) Like almost everyone these days, I've been staying inside.  I have stopped driving around outside for...recreational purposes.
BBSP is just too far away, AND, entrance protocol to the park has changed dramatically (even for volunteers). So...I haven't been going there. So I'm catching up on old material.
Around May of 2006, I found a bold jumping spider (Phiddipus Audax) *inside* my car.  I caught it, but instead of letting it go outside, I decided to release it in my apartment. 
I'd been getting a few insect pests. I didn't see the spider for a while, but then on 5/14/2006 it appeared near my phone with a prize. A few days later (5/17/2006, 5/18/2006), 
it appeared to have found a home behind a framed document I had on the wall (my dog's pedigree).  There were a few times while I was sitting at my computer in the evening, when 
I had an odd feeling of being watched. When I looked back over my shoulder, I could see her standing on the picture frame and looking my way. Tiny dots of light reflected in her eyes.

    
                         1  5/14/2006                                     2  5/14/2006                                                        3  5/17/2006                                         4  5/17/2006

    
                 10  5/25/2006                                      11  5/26/2006                                              12  5/26/2006                                          13  5/26/2006
I didn't notice at the time, but the pictures show how large she was getting. The spider was gravid! 

    
             14  5/27/2006                                            15  5/27/2006                                                  16  5/27/2006                                  17  5/27/2006
  She began making a nest .   Here's video showing her starting her nest.  

    
                   18  5/27/2006                                             19  5/27/2006                                       20  5/27/2006                                         21  5/27/2006
Some of these pictures show how I  was shooting video. At the time, I tried using a bright flashlight for the light source. It was all I could afford.  ha ha ha

    
                 22  5/27/2006                                         23 5/27/2006                                          24  5/29/2006                                           26  5/29/2006
  A couple days later, I saw her eggs.  I could see her covering her eggs with layers of webbing. Here's video showing her covering her eggs.  

     
                  28  5/29/2006                                            30 5/29/2006                                          33  5/31/2006                                            34  5/31/2006
   After laying her eggs, she continued hunting.  Here's video showing her eating a few times after laying eggs.  She's noticeably smaller in the video. 

    
                     35 5/31/2006                                         36  6/09/2006                                        37  6/09/2006
I hadn't seen her for a while, until I found her on a shelf. She had died.  
6/13 A few more days passed, and then I noticed one little spider appear on the nest. It later went back inside.   Here's video showing the single first instar.

    
              38  6/16/2006                                             39   6/16/2006                                          40 6/16/2006                                           41  6/18/2006  
After a few more days, there was more activity in the nest.  6/18 I moved the quarter onto the wall.  The mass of babies showed as a dark mass under the silk. 

    
                   43 6/27/2006                                           44  6/29/2006                                        46  6/29/2006                                         47  6/29/2006
  On 6/27 there was still no movement out of the silk.  On 6/29  the babies started leaving their shelter.    Here's video showing the babies leaving the nest.

   
                48  6/29/2006                                            49  6/29/2006                                           52  6/29/2006
Soon after, I returned home from work, and found the spiderlings had scattered across my ceiling!  I captured as many as I could, and released them
outside. They were scattered all over the ceiling, and were starting to drop down.  I didn't have time to grab a camera as I gathered the spiderlings. So, no pictures. 
6/12/2020--Finally, here is a 10 minute video that summarizes everything!! 

October 03, 2004 Finally, I was standing on one of the foot bridges, and watching a female alligator and her young; when I caught a movement in my lower field of vision.
------------------
          JUMPING SPIDER                     RICK THUMBING A RIDE          GET THAT CAMERA OUT OF HERE!
I looked down and saw this spider (see JUMPING SPIDER, above) on the rail. I was able to get some good shots with the "supermacro" setting on my camera, but I had to move the camera close to 
the spider to do this. As I was trying to photograph it, the spider decided to jump ONTO my camera.  Well, that wasn't going to work, so I let it jump onto my hand, where I took a few more pictures as
it crawled on my thumb (see RICK THUMBING A RIDE, above). Note those two large eyes in front, with two smaller eyes alongside. Also, that clinging ability, due to the scopulae, is evident as it 
clings to my thumb. It jumped off, catching itself by the typical "safety line" (a friend of mine likes to call it a "butt tether"), and it returned to the rail (see GET THAT CAMERA OUT, above). I wanted to 
try to get more pictures of the safety line in action, but a park visitor came by to ask me about a large alligator. So, I left.

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                                                                    ANY KEY?
At around 10:00, I reached for my mug of coffee...which was actually pretty cold by then (fortunately). When I looked down into the mug, I saw a spider half-submerged in the coffee. OH, NO! Grabbing a 
fork, I gently fished the spider out, and set it on my desk. After a few seconds, it started crawling around. This time, I was able to get my camera, and that's how these pictures came to be.
This is a member of the Jumping Spider family (Salticidae), and might be a Plexippus paykulli, judging by the white stripes. (I've got a few more pictures--and video clips--of jumping spiders on my
jumping spider page.) Take a closer look at the RICKUBISCAM and you might notice a blue "thread" coming of the end of its abdomen (opisthosoma).  This is a web coming from its spinnarets. Jumping
Spiders usually attach a "safety tether" as they move about, in preperation for jumping. If they miss a target, or jump off an edge, they can use the tether to stop their fall and climb back onto a surface.  
The two pictures below show this tether closer (KEYBOARD CLOSER; REAL CLOSE,below).

----
               THE KEYBOARD CLOSER                                         THE KEYBOARD REAL CLOSE                                             ON THE PEN                                                                ON THE EDGE                   

                    ON THE EDGE CLOSER

I'm not sure what to make of the reddish patch on the tip of the abdomen. The spider moved to the pen (see ON THE PEN, above), and jumped off to the side, and then onto my keyboard housing. 
(see ON THE EDGE, and ON THE EDGE CLOSER, above). Note those two large frontal eyes, also, that's a quarter in the picture over the spider.
----
                        UNDERNEATH                                                         ON RICK'S FINGERTIP                                                  LATERAL EYES                                                      ON RICK'S CUTICLE       

            FACE-ON RICK'S FINGER

The spider got a little nervous when I was taking pictures, and walked under the top of the case (see UNDERNEATH, above). This illustrates something else that spiders can do; which is 
cling to smooth surfaces. The end of certain spider's legs (the tarsus) has, besides claws, very tiny hairs called "scopulae".  Each of these hairs is split, in turn, into hundreds of finer hairs.
For example, in Biology of Spiders by Rainer F.Foelix, it says that a crab spider with 30 "scopular hairs" on each foot can have each of those hairs split into 500 to 1000 end feet. That 
makes a total of about 30 x 750 = 22,500 for ONE foot! 8 feet with this number of microhairs would be 8 x 22,500 = 180,000 contact points! Research shows that each of these very small 
hairs will adhere to a surface through molecular attraction (they are small enough for this kind of effect to take place); and the combined action of these thousands of hairs can support the 
weight of the spider. Different species of spiders have different numbers of scopulae. Those spiders that actively hunt (such as Jumping Spiders) have greater numbers of these, allowing
them to pursue prey (or escape from being prey) over almost any surface, in any direction. For a recent article on these scopulae, look at  The Institute of Physics page. It's got great (but
huge--over 1mb) pictures of the hairs. Finally, I enticed the spider to crawl onto my finger for some better closeups, but with limited success because it kept moving (see above, ON RICK'S
FINGERTIP). Looking closer, you may notice how the flash has caused highlight to glint on two (or four) spots on the lateral edge of the spiders carapace. These are four eyes (two pairs), 
which--with the 4 frontal eyes (see FACE-ON RICK'S FINGER)--make up the 8 eyes on this species. the last image below is from a short clip of the spider moving up my finger.  Finally, 
the spider went on about its business, and I went back to work.  Coffee break was over.
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                                                 SHORT CLIP ON MY FINGER 409KB

November 29, 2003  It was a beautiful day. I sat down on the grass to be near Anubis. I could see, in among the short blades, the movements of small spiders. As I looked around, I 
spotted a small spider catching some sun on a leaf. So, I took some pictures, and finally slid a quarter next to the spider and took a few more. As you can see in the picture below 
(NO SMALL CHANGE), it posed nicely with the quarter.
----
                  NO SMALL CHANGE                                           LOOK AT THOSE EYES!                                          DARING JUMPER                                      DARING JUMPER EXPLORES     

                   AUDAX FROM ABOVE
The picture above (LOOK AT THOSE EYES) is cropped from one of the other pictures. The four eyes in front, with the two really big center pair (as well as two more sets on the 
sides of the cephalothorax) help identify this as one of the many species of "jumping spiders". Although I can't guess which spider the brown one is, I can be pretty sure about the
Daring Jumping Spider; Phidippus audax (see DARING JUMPER, above.).  I took the pictures the Daring Jumping Spider in September of 2002.  Note the large eyes also in front
on this spider. Also, those iridescent "fangs", or chelicerae, are another identification key for this spider.  The next image (DARING JUMPER EXPLORES, above) is a frame from
a short video clip (flv video 462kb) of the same spider.  Watch as it investigates the edges of the park bench. This clip shows the spider at a more common viewing distance than
the macro shots above. I could watch jumping spiders for hours; they look so aware--and when they pounce on something...WOW! The next picture (AUDAX FROM ABOVE, above)
shows the same spider from the top. Jumping spiders are classified in the family Salticidae. Many of these are hard to tell apart, and I sure can't tell exactly which species this one is.
  Spiders as a whole are in the order Aranae. This is split into two suborders; Mygalamorphae and Araneomorphae (the Foelix book lists a another order before these two, Mesothelae.).
The first group is generally made up of "primitive" spiders, and in Texas, tarantulas are the most common of this type.  Most of our spiders belong to the second group, though,  and this
group is further divided into families. These divisions are made by web type, or hunting behavior (for instance the Salticidae, which are the jumpers), or certain other characteristics.
Jumping spiders don't make webs to snare prey, although they do set down a "safety line" before they leap (here's a clip 365kb , also look at the Spiders 1 page).  According to
A Field Guide to Spiders and Scorpions in Texas by John A. Jackman; they can leap many times their own body length, and the safety line can be used to recover in case they miss their
target. Also, while they are moving around many of these jumpers constantly tap where they're walking with their pedipalps, possibly sensing chemical traces of prey.  Another interesting
observation, from Biology of Spiders by Rainer F. Foelix; is that--depending on the species--jumping spiders jump by pushing off with either their last (4th) pair of legs, the 3rd pair, or a
combination of the 3rd and 4th pair. This makes sense, considering that they usually use the front pair (1st) of legs to help snare their prey.  Also Jumping Spiders are generally credited
with having the best eyesight of all the spiders. Since they can see further than most spiders (some orbweavers are almost blind), the react to movement, and move towards it, to
investigate it. This could be why some of them (like the Daring Jumper) cause some people to become unnerved. The spiders seem unafraid, and, in fact, seem to be sizing us up rather
than running away at our approach. This kind of behavior from a creature about the size of a quarter ( see the image below, DARING JUMPER AND QUARTER) is usually unexpected.
(The image below is actually among the first I took of this spider. I had it on a table inside trying to photograph it before I released it outside on one of the park benches and took more 
pictures.)The spider in the video clip leaping onto the "lovebugs" is the same type as in this image(see WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, below). This spider was about a half-inch long,
standing on a wall, and as I leaned forward with the camera, about 12 inches away, the spider looked up at me, as if daring me to try something. A closeup of the face (WHAT BIG EYES, 
below) shows again the eye arrangement which these spiders possess.  Another version of this picture has appeared earlier above, since I photographed it in Sept. of 2002. I've guessed
that this one is a Plexippus paykulli, but it's only a guess.

--------------------------------
                  DARING JUMPER AND QUARTER                                MY GOSH, IT'S FULL OF STRANDS!                              WHAT ARE *YOU* LOOKING AT?                               WHAT BIG EYES YOU HAVE
As I was looking through the grass, I could see a number of webs glinting in the sunlight. Seeing those made me think of another time (last January), when I saw the yard covered by strands of 
silk (see MY GOSH, above, or the bottom of my Critters webpage). Could all of that have been caused by spiders in the grass? If so....what a mass of spiders, and what a huge number of small
creatures must have been eaten!

September 08, 2002 Inhabitants of Texas are familiar with "love bugs", those black insects that--to quote an old airlines ad--"fly united". The scientific name for them is plecia nearctica Hardy, 
and they are mainly annoying. The bodies of these insects are acidic. Clouds of these were flying around my friend's house. I decided to take my camera and look around the house for some
spiders, which I'd seen before. I wasn't disappointed. There were quite a few of them foraging. I spent some time watching their antics.  I noticed two jumping spiders about 4 feet apart that were
attacking the love bugs (yay!).
-          --- 
                                  JUMPING SPIDER                                              HEY!  GET A ROOM!
The one on the left seemed to be catching and eating them, while the one on the right was catching them and "spitting them out". I got a pretty good macro shot of one of them (see JUMPING SPIDER, 
above).  Note the huge center pair of eyes. See how he seems to be looking up at me, and daring me to try something? They're pretty feisty.  I was able to get a short clip of one spider making a 
successful attack and then dropping its prey (the "spitting it out" spider) . HEY, GET A ROOM (above) is from this clip. To see the clip, click here. (flv video 365 kb).

If you'd like to know more about the park follow these links:

Brazos Bend State Park   The main page.

Brazos Bend State Park Volunteer's Page  The volunteer's main page.

Click on this image   to see a flv video movie (942kb) of a series of 9  11 x 14 posters I'm working on.

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