Scientific American: Baby jumping spiders see surprisingly well

Scientific American spoke to UC associate professor Nathan Morehouse about how baby spiders fit the architecture of their keen vision into such a tiny package. Morehouse, UC biology professor Elke Buschbeck and Morehouse's former student at the University of Pittsburgh, John Thomas Gote, co-authored a study that appeared in the journal Vision Research.

Morehouse and Buschbeck used her custom-made micro-ophthalmoscope to examine the eyes of baby spiders. They found that the baby spiders have the same number of photoreceptors as adults but packed differently to fit in a smaller volume.

Morehouse is using a National Science Foundation grant to study spider vision around the world. He traveled to Singapore with an international team of researchers earlier this year.

"Even arachnophobic people find these little jumping spiders to be compelling – they dance, they sing vibratory songs to each other,” Morehouse told the magazine.