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Comment by doctorzook | Hacker News Reader

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doctorzook·

It’s a great photo, but the second-place jumping spider is my favorite: it is just so adorable.

https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2026-photomicrogra...

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The parasitoid wasp doing its little dance move [1] gave me a chuckle.

[1] https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2026-photomicrogra...

I'm somewhere between "awww how cute!" and "I'm gonna lose my lunch".

I'm getting, "hey man, could you help me up" vibes, to which my answer would be a resounding "NO!"

This pic reminds me of the Children of Time series of novels

Portia!

I will never moan again about having pollen in my eyes during hayfever season.

Is it so adorable because of the eyes? I don't think spiders have pupils. That effect seems to be a reflection of the camera/lens/apparatus taking the picture, rather than the actual spider.

For me its the seemingly cross-eyed look combined with the bits of pollen that remind me of a flower child i.e. a hippie spider.

I have hard time accepting this is a real image. Do pollen really look like that?!

Pollen is quite diverse. So yeah, some pollen, apparently.

I'm guessing the pollen grains on it also look neat.

It is! What are the little balls, are they pollen?

Yes, the title of the photo is “Jumping spider (Salticus scenicus) with pollen”

Hah, ok, totally missed that, thank you. But it seemed an obvious candidate, they reminded me of those clingy balls that come off some plants so I figured they must be something like that.

Another class of biological thing that look broadly similar under magnification are fern spores. I guess moss spores too but I haven't seen those.

Interesting, I have some here I should look at them under a microscope.

Yeesh that is creepy.

Holy moly, I love it

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