Some kind of tiny spider

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Mon May 29, 2017 9:43 pm

Nikon D500, AF Micro Nikkor 200mm f4, Mitutoyo 10X

Beatsy · Post by **Beatsy** » Tue May 30, 2017 1:06 am

Nice composition. Spider eyes and their varying "arrangement" between species fascinates me. Are they eyes or ocelli? And what's the difference?

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Tue May 30, 2017 1:31 am

Not sure!

Maybe "eye" is a very general term and all these ocelli and ommatidia are subsets... I have noticed that almost all the spiders I find around here have an arrangement much like this one. Though, there used to be an adorable jumping spider living in our bathroom, with huge forward facing eyes.
I hadn't yet started taking pictures of the tiny, but with those big beautiful lens eyes out front, and their willingness to sit still, I am hopeful one day to get a beautiful stack of a live one. Just yesterday I noticed a few very cool crab spiders being very industrious in the garden. Attempts at a handheld 1:1 macro shot in the golden hour afternoon light were, alas, unrewarded with any keepers.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Tue May 30, 2017 1:13 pm

Spider eyes are different from both kinds of insect eyes (compound eyes and ocelli).

Spider eyes are a lot more like vertebrate eyes, with a single lens and an imaging retina. They vary a lot in resolution and field of view between species and from one eye to another. The Anterior Median eyes of jumping spiders (not shown in this thread) are particularly rich, with good resolution on both lateral and depth axes.

This is now described at quite a few places on the web. See for example http://tolweb.org/accessory/Jumping_Spi ... cc_id=1946 and https://www.wired.com/2014/04/spider-vision-made-clear/ .

--Rik

Beatsy · Post by **Beatsy** » Tue May 30, 2017 1:34 pm

Gosh! Amazing. Thanks for the links Rik - very interesting. I enjoyed the linked cartoon too

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Tue May 30, 2017 2:24 pm

...We need a new icon for jumping spider visual movement!
So interesting, never would had thought so.

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Tue May 30, 2017 2:50 pm

So cool!
Thanks, Rik!

Olympusman · Post by **Olympusman** » Wed May 31, 2017 10:12 am

From the eye pattern, it looks like it my be Family Pisauridae - Nursery Web Spiders.

Mike

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Wed May 31, 2017 12:24 pm

Thanks, Olympusman!

I think that is it!
I should have mentioned that this picture was taken in the Pacific Northwest, but that probably wouldn't have aided much in this case, given how widespread these are.

anvancy · Post by **anvancy** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 12:18 am

The composition is fantastic.

Its like I am watching you.