Jumpin' Jehosaphat

Jumpin' Jehosaphat!

Those jumping spiders can jump--several lengths of their body, in fact.

There seem to be more spiders in our yard this summer than usual--crab spiders, black widows, web weavers and jumping spiders. Well, that makes sense--we have more bees. A bee friendly garden is a spider friendly garden.

Spiders, though, are good for the garden when they catch pests like flies, gnats and mosquitoes. We don't like them nailing our pollinators but that's a fact of life--and death.

One of the guests in our garden is the Daring Jumping Spider, a black spider with metallic green chelicerae (the "fangs" in the structure containing the mouthparts).

It looks like the perfect Halloween spider (along with the black widow).

This particular Daring Jumping Spider crawled into the leaves and flowers of a sedum yesterday to ambush an insect. It didn't take long. An Italian honey bee buzzed down and began foraging.

The spider steathily crawled toward its would-be prey.

In a nanosecond, the spider pounced.

Missed!

Whew! That was close one.