Agreed. I get them in my home and at work. Just about the only spider I would encourage into my home.
My vote is with snickers.
~VOW
This one. Don’t blink, you’ll miss him.
Love those guys.
But since they were already mentioned, I also have a soft spot for various flower crab spiders like this one, which I find fascinating for their habits of ambusing critters from flowers
Just the common Daddy Longlegs. We’ll leave 'em be in the house until their homebuilding activity gets a little too ambitious, then put them outside. Got one now up in a corner.
I like wolf spiders, but only when they are carrying their babies.
I’ve never seen a face spider, but I’d like to.
Love them all - but at any one time the ones I love most are those I am blogging and so am checking every night. Getting to know individuals is so much fun. Of the current lot, my favourite is the black house spider (toward the bottom of the most recent blog) because she’s doing such cool web decorations.
OK, so that spider is pretty freaking cute. I’ll give you that one.
Golden Orb Weaver. Their spider silk is actually gold-colored which makes their webs very cool.
The cartwheeling spider, of course! Who could not love an arachnid whose main mode of locomotion is doing cartwheels? I mean, just look at it go!
Radioactive
Yes! And they’re huge (at least the females; the males are teeny in comparison) and really elegant and beautiful.
A dead one…I hate the damn things. Of all creatures on this planet, they are my most feared. I would run thru a snake pit and crawl thru a rat’s layer filled with cockroaches before a came purposely close to a spider, regardless of size or poisonisity.
Maratus volans, the Peacock Spider.
And finally, and this one should win the cute-contest hands down, Phrynarachne sp an ultra-cute spider dubbed with a cruel and unfair misnomer common name, the Bird Shit Crab Spider.
Another vote. I always just called them “garden spiders” but they are impressively large, spin neat orb webs, have a distinctive color and actually live in my neck of the woods rather than in some far-off jungle or desert. I think they’re neat.
purplehorseshoe, I have a present for you! A link to a friend’s bug videos on YouTube. Start with Reggae Jumping Spiders of Thailand. Search his videos for “spider” and you’ll find lots of cool spiders from all over the globe.
Who?
Geez, I crack myself up sometimes…
Thanks for that link, Troppus, great videos. Much enjoyed!
Agree with all the comments about golden orb weavers - the sun on their webs can be magical - the garden orb weavers and Argiope.
I don’t understand people who live with a massive fear of spiders. It’s totally irrational. I guess they get some pleasure from it - like the joy of saying so whenever we arachnophiles rave on about how gorgeous they are. I have been there - I was getting to the stage my arachnophobia was really interfering with my life. So I started studying the little critters to control the fear, overdid the cure and now adore them obsessively. It is not a fear people need to live with.
Fiat.
A view from orbit would’ve been better 