The jumping/portia spiders are the coolest. Cracked.com had an article on diabolical insects with them featured in it. http://www.cracked.com/article_109_natur

The jumping/portia spiders are the coolest. Cracked.com had an article on diabolical insects with them featured in it. http://www.cracked.com/article_109_natures-6-most-diabolical-predators.html http://www.cracked.com/article_109_natures-6-most-diabolical... I'll excerpt the relevant part for folks that are squeamish or at work given Cracked is a bit NSFW: "Each individual Portia employs their own unique and vast arsenal of dastardly impersonations to trick, ensnare and consume their prey. A Portia spider might strum a pattern on a strand to impersonate the buzzing of a fly caught in another spider's web, while a different spider of the same exact species might opt to catch a real fly to throw in the web and, while the prey spider is distracted, sneak up behind it. It may pretend to be inanimate by moving only in the wind, it may observe and duplicate another spider's entire mating ritual or sometimes it might even build a complete web of its own that attaches to its victim's, thereby creating a trap out of the spider's own trap." They're just too friggin' smart! I make sure nobody squashes them at my house so they do their important work of eating other spiders. One time I watched one do a nice ambush. Target spider had a web in the corner it almost always sat on. The invisible, jumping spider apparently waited until the target descended from its web to (I guess) start extending it. Jumping spider ran out of nowhere full-speed across ceiling, jumped past web onto that single strand, and started climbing down at spider. Brief battle ensued. The jumping spider was literally sitting between the target's ass and web with nowhere for it to go. It dropped a few inches to create distance. Then, just cut its own supporting line to drop off the ceiling abandoning its original web. Jumping spider climbed back up it going back where it came from. Fun to watch.