They are absolutely fascinating. Sure, I’m certain a lot of videos ham it up a bit because of the way they look around and do certain things but generally animals with that much visual acuity have a lot of processing power to deal with the info so its not a far stretch at all to imagine there is something more to their intelligence.
Spiders in the genus Portia show behaviour which is really fascinating, not only do they use their eyes to actively hunt but they ‘plan’ attack routes - they can see their prey, plan a route to get closer, which involves breaking line of sight for extended periods yet still remember where to go and where the prey was. They also exhibit strong learning traits and pattern recognition. Absolutely fascinating, and adorable, things. I really want to get a pet jumping spider, one of the big ones.
The only other spiders I know of who do anything similar are tarantula who I will note have a proto-brain but even they seem to be a bit more instinctual. Pretty neat that the little jumpers seem to be the smarter ones, either that or tarantula are simply far more cautious.
They are absolutely fascinating. Sure, I’m certain a lot of videos ham it up a bit because of the way they look around and do certain things but generally animals with that much visual acuity have a lot of processing power to deal with the info so its not a far stretch at all to imagine there is something more to their intelligence.
Spiders in the genus Portia show behaviour which is really fascinating, not only do they use their eyes to actively hunt but they ‘plan’ attack routes - they can see their prey, plan a route to get closer, which involves breaking line of sight for extended periods yet still remember where to go and where the prey was. They also exhibit strong learning traits and pattern recognition. Absolutely fascinating, and adorable, things. I really want to get a pet jumping spider, one of the big ones.
The only other spiders I know of who do anything similar are tarantula who I will note have a proto-brain but even they seem to be a bit more instinctual. Pretty neat that the little jumpers seem to be the smarter ones, either that or tarantula are simply far more cautious.