From Sy Montgomery’s The Curious Naturalist:
“Perhaps the least gruesome spider faces belong to the jumping spiders. “They’re the cutest spiders,” asserts Bill Piel, a student in Herbert Levi’s spider lab. Jumping spiders, of which there are several species, have two big button eyes (“like the headlights on a car,” Levi says) and six smaller ones. They stalk their prey visually, jumping like a cat on flies, beetles, and moths, leaving a dragline of silk behind. What makes them so appealing, says Piel, is that unlike most other spiders that seem oblivious to your presence, these spiders will look right at you: “A movement of your arm or hand will cause it to focus on you. It’s like a squirrel.”
