During the pandemic, researcher Daniela Rößler couldn't go out, so she started looking around her for her next research project. Then she found a really big one, and it had been right in front of her all along.

From a research perspective, the whole visual being of jumping spiders really excited me. They have eight eyes and two really big ones that are forward facing. They totally hunt like cats. So they will stalk their prey and pounce on it. And when something is moving and jumping, spider will turn towards it to investigate. You get that feeling of the spider is actually looking right back at you, and no other spider will do it.

For hundreds of years, people have looked at them and studied them, but obviously it’s the times where we tend to not look at our animals that the interesting stuff happens. For example, when they’re sleeping.