I have always had, and likely always will have, a visceral fear of spiders that is impervious to logic. It doesn’t matter in the slightest that there are only a few spiders in Ohio capable of killing or greatly harming us (widows and recluses). On more than one occasion I’ve narrowly avoided wrecking my car because some tiny eight-legged daredevil chose the worst possible moment to abseil down from the driver’s side sun visor.

I like spiders. I find them interesting. Fascinating, even. But I scream and jump out of my seat at the mere hint of a brownish blob in my peripheral vision that has a greater chance of being a stinkbug than anything from the order Araneae.

With one exception.

Jumping spiders are the cutest invertebrates on the planet. They’re fuzzier than most mammals. They have eyelashes for days. They don’t creep or dangle, they just jump around like they’re nervous to be there. And they don’t trigger an iota of that skin-crawling, gut-sinking phobia that other spiders evoke in me. It doesn’t even have to be a fancy peacock spider, though if you haven’t seen them dance, you really ought to. If I saw a member of the Salticidae family the size of a mouse, I’d want it to jump onto my shoulder and perch like a parrot.

Anyway, I saw this charming lady on a sconce in our bathroom yesterday and took the opportunity to snap about a hundred pictures of her with my new macro lens. I took so many because I’m still learning how to use the new lens, but she just sat there until I managed to get a good shot and then scampered back to her hiding spot.

My wife used the Seek app to discover that this is a tan jumping spider, also known as platycryptus undatus.

Female tan jumping spider, or platycryptus undatus, on a wall sconce.