Why Jumping Spiders Have the Coolest (and DEADLIEST) Eyes in Nature

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 11:42:56 +0000

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Why do spiders have 8 eyes? It’s a seemingly simple question with a surprisingly complex answer. We’ll be hanging out with some jumping spiders (the cutest of all spiders) and some jumping spider researchers to investigate how a thumbnail-sized creature with a poppy seed-sized brain ended up evolving some of the most advanced eyes in the animal kingdom, overcoming a few limitations of physics in the process. We’ll watch as scientists study these spiders in a special eye tracking machine and learn how having 8 eyes instead of two gives these elite predators almost 360˚ vision and almost hawk-level depth perception and resolution.

References: https://sites.google.com/view/....how-jumping-spiders-

Big thanks to:
Dr. Beth Jakob and Alex Winsor - UMass Amherst http://ejakob.popslice.com/
Dr. Nathan Morehouse and lab - University of Cincinnati https://homepages.uc.edu/~morehonn/

Additional footage credits:
Spider retinal movements - Daniel Zurek
Spider courtship videos - Daniel Zurek, Sebastian Echeverri, and Nathan Morehouse (Morehouse Lab, University of Cincinnati)

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