#zabina the spider

[zabinathespider]

Zabina: Why wont my human let me jump into their water cup?? Makes no sense. I will now climb all over the desk and pout. 

Literally had to save her from herself after she was hanging out on my keyboard and decided the next logical step was to fling herself onto the edge of my mug of water. I coaxed her onto something I had laying around and then set her on another part of the desk until I had to help her back to the windowsill because she couldnt make the jump back over.

[zabinathespider]

Well... 2020 has come with a lot of twists and turns and honestly... the least expected for me is the fact that I accidentally acquired a “pet” spider...

I myself have an EXTREME fear of spiders... like... I have had to call friends to come over to my apartment to remove spiders for me because I cant. Well this year I moved into my own apartment for the first time. So no one is there to save me when tiny multi-legged critters show up, Im also in a basement so they tend to show up a lot. One way I help myself with these fears is to give things names, so I decided to call this little spider Zabina, after the beloved pet of a drow npc in the D&D game I currently dm. 

I more or less expected that to be the last I saw of the little spider, we’d leave each other alone and that would be that. She had other plans. Ive found myself basically owning a 2cm cat that LOVES to inspect my desk and climb all over my laptop. So welcome to Zabina’s blog, where I will be posting her weird tiny adventures (aka all the times I have to put a lot of effort into not letting this spider die from her own foolishness)

Enjoy. 

(Hopefully I’ll be able to get an actual macro lens for my phone soon, but until then I apologize in advance for the photo quality.)

[zabinathespider]

Someone was very interested in my dice today... and then very frustrated that she was unable to climb them. After falling off several times she literally looked over at me as if I could somehow solve her plight. Ultimately she decided it wasnt worth the effort.

[zabinathespider]

I wasnt going to post more today but Zabina is currently having herself a little jungle adventure in my houseplant and its honestly super cute. She keeps climbing the highest leaves and then just scoping out the room.

[zabinathespider]

This is a very bittersweet post today... I posted recently that I was pretty sure Zabina was a fairly old spider and I believe I was unfortunately correct. Its been about a week now since Ive seen her anywhere and I honestly believe shes passed now. She was a very good spider and I loved her very much.

Here is one of the last pics I got of her, I still have a few on my phone I havent posted yet so I will try to get those up.

Like I said though its bittersweet, and the sweet part is she left some interesting new faces around my apartment... (never ever thought I'd be happy to see more spiders...)

Ive taken to calling this one Pixel because they are SO FREAKING SMALL. These pictures honestly dont do it justice to show just how tiny this baby is...

This is Zabina on that same window.

Pixel isnt the only baby Ive seen around, theres one slightly bigger (still so tiny) one that had to get the Cup of Shame much like mama Zabina bc they were attempting to explore my bed, they were safely moved over to a better spot by my front door.

Its crazy to me how different their patterns are, hopefully Pixel will stick around the window so I can see how they look once theyre bigger.

I may not have a ton of pictures of Zabina left but I will definitely keep posting pics of the little ones as I see them around. Much like their mama I dont plan to keep them captive but rather just let them exist as they choose. Im still both surprised and thankful Zabina spent so much of her time hanging out so close to me and making me less scared of (some) spiders.

[zabinathespider]

Zabina contemplates the BIG MATH

[zabinathespider]

(Zabina: The human has trapped me! I am VERY TRAPPED!)

One of the most ridiculous things Ive noticed about Zabina is that despite being a jumping spider, she is very terrible at jumping. Also climbing. 

I have seen this spider fail at jumping a 2 inch gap over and over again, catching herself on a web and then climbing up and failing terribly again. Eventually after watching this carry on for about 10 minutes I got a plastic cup and scooped her up and set it on a ledge thinking “cool, now she can get out and get where shes going.” 20 minutes later she was still trying to figure out how to get out the closed end of the cup. So I exploited the moment and took a bunch of pictures before gently tipping the cup and leaning it so she could easily get out.

It still took her about 15 minutes. 

[zabinathespider]

Someone had to get put in the cup again today because she decided the best thing to do was to try to rappel to the floor next to my desk chair which really isnt a safe place to be when youre 1/4th of an inch long. I put her back on the windowsill where its safe and cozy for her and ended up getting some really good pictures in the process.

[zabinathespider]

Its 1:30am and I am currently having emotions over my tiny spider bc for the first time instead of hiding at night she just stayed sat above my desk and is resting there for the night, and in my brain I know spiders probably don't put that much thought into things, but it definitely FEELS like its her being like "I know this human wont hurt me so Im just gunna nap here while they stare at that loud flashy thing bc its safe here"

There are so many little nooks for her her hide nearby and a whole potted plant, shes such a weird little spider and I honestly love her very much and I would fistfight another spider for her even though they scare me very badly.

[zabinathespider]

Been a minute since Ive posted, sorry folks, its hard to schedule pictures when the subject is prone to running off for a few days.

Zabina apparently discovered my wax melt/light that I keep on my desk and was absolutely hypnotized by it. She walked around it in circles for a good 10 minutes before trying to climb up the side. Once again I thought it best to save her from herself so after taking a few pics I got up and turned it off so she'd stop being entranced. 

One of my favorite things about her though is that she will often just stop and look directly at me, its not really something I ever noticed about spiders before Zabina. She always does the little slight tilt, like a puppy...

Ive got a few more pics to post but I'll try to spread them out so as not to have such long inactive times. Im fairly sure she just molted recently bc after being gone a few days shes back and is definitely bigger, so once she comes down from the ceiling Ill have to get some good pics of how lorge she is now.

[zabinathespider]

Further proof that jumping spiders are tiny cats...

Since her favorite place to hang out is right above my chair and she sometimes has issues sticking to the ceiling I always make sure to check my seat if I dont see her above me, this time it was a very good thing I did! Bc of my recent move Ive been using my wheelchair as a desk chair until I can get a proper office chair, I caught her trying to fight her reflection in the shiny metal.

Im officially dubbing the cup I use to move her the "cup of shame"

At least its a good way for me to show off her actual size

Shes already back on the ceiling and ready for mini mischief

[zabinathespider]

I never thought Id be researching spiders as much as I have since becoming attached to Zabina, due to her size (on the upper scale for zebra spiders) I knew she had to be fully grown, but I really didnt know how to tell how old a spider is from looking at them. Honestly before her I knew very little about spiders at all apart from knowing which of my friends I could call to remove them from my apartment.

As it turns out, the fact that she is pretty bad at climbing may be an indication that shes a pretty old lady. It makes me sad, but also happy that shes very safe in her old age.

Its also amazing to me that every day she makes the climb to hang out sitting over my shoulder on the ceiling even though its harder for her to hold on all the time.

Im very torn because part of me wants to keep her safe in some kind of terrarium, but Ive seen how much she wanders around the apartment and I feel like it would be so mean for me to take that away from her. I dont know how long I'll have her around but Im going to keep taking pictures while shes here :)

(Side note she definitely got annoyed with me yesterday for moving her in the cup lol I went to take a picture of her later in the day and she saw me and looked at my phone and then very casually walked away and under something where I couldn't see her. Not fast enough to seem scared at all but DEFINITELY salty! Shes back in her usual spot today though!) ((these pictures are from a few days ago, I gave her her privacy when she didnt want to be a model))

[zabinathespider]

So I really want to find somewhere I can properly learn about Zabina... from everything I can tell she is just a common zebra jumping spider, which are native to my area, however everything Ive been able to look up is like "these spiders dont really make webs, except to catch themselves when jumping or when molting" which makes sense to me since they are non web dwelling spiders.

However Zabina frequently does this thing where she will hang out on the ceiling and make small webs that she will hang out on, just off the surface of the ceiling, or she will purposefully lower herself down on one strand and just... hang out. Sometimes she just sits there, but often she spins herself around and Ive even seen her literally swinging back and forth (she actually gained quite a bit of momentum).

It honestly just looks like shes playing, but Ive never heard of spiders being an animal that actually plays. Theres no prey around when she does this, shes not trying to get away from anything, and she typically just climbs back to her same spot after a little while so it doesnt seem like shes trying to GO anywhere. For now it's very cute, but I'd love to understand whats going through her little spider mind.

[zabinathespider]

Sometimes Zabina likes to chill out and dance next to me while I listen to music, here is her audition for Cirque du Soleil

(cut from the video is how I definitely forgot I was super zoomed in and when she jumped it scared the heck out of me)

The song here is Sympathetic Magic by Charming Disaster and can be found here:

https://charmingdisaster.bandcamp.com/album/cautionary-tales