File:Maevia inclemens eyes.jpg

You may have noticed by now that the eyes of jumping spiders can be several colors, but I have noticed that female Maevia iclemens are often exceptionally vivid. With their beautiful deep blue anterior median eyes displaying the occasional moving wash of red due to the internal movement of the spider's retina, they are truly remarkable.

I found this little (~5mm) female Maevia inclemens in a light fixture on my back porch, and upon noticing that she was going to be quite a cooperative subject, I ran back inside and grabbed my macro bellows. I have no way of judging exactly what magnification the photo above was taken at, but I am confident it was taken past 5:1 with th 28mm reversed to the bellows. I spent a little bit watching her through the viewfinder as I could actually see that red haze move about behind those lenses! It's absolutely remarkable to see these movements - I'll have to try to get a video of it sometime soon.

The photo above is a focus stack from 4 photos taken at f/8 and cropped pretty significantly. I only got 9 photos of this spider before my good luck turned and she hopped away and I lost her. I thought I was getting better at finding escapees, but her flee was successful - I never found her.

To read more about jumping spider vision on Wikipedia (with a photo of mine), go here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_spider#Vision

And Dr. Wayne Maddison has a fantastic page about salticid vision over at Tolweb here: