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The smart spider is portia, a jumping spider. A quick search uncovers zounds of videos, articles, and scientific publications on them.

They specialize is hunting spiders, changing hunting tactics based on type and number of prey. Yes, they count. They strategize. They make multi-step plans that take them out of sight of prey. And some people keep them as pets.

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>And some people keep them as pets.

I can personally vouch for them being great pets. They're active during the day, hunt prey, don't need much food or water, and tend to "hide" in silk cases they build along the top of their terrariums so you can always see them. They like to get water from inside flowers, and probably can differentiate between many colors, so adding bright flowers not only makes things prettier, it provides a watering hole and possible hunting advantage over color-blind insects trying to hide.

Of course, if you don't want to set up a terrarium and personally sentence crickets to death, just look at the screens in your windows. Odds are, a jumping spider is already living there and will stay as long as you let it. They're territorial.

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Yes! I learned about them reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's excellent scifi book "Children of Time".
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I once watched a spider spinning a very crude "parachute" and catching wind to leap between two parked cars about 6 feet apart. Spiders definitely have great spatial reckoning and a level ingenuity in silk use that is pretty shocking for such small creatures.
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> Notice that the spider is carefully moving out of the way, just a second before the ant is launched.

It's not moving before the ant is launched. It's moving as soon as the tension in the web is gone, ie. there's movement in their web. Most spiders react to movement in their web.

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May be an effect of the video being show in slow motion. Good point. Then this spider is ultra-fast.
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Of course, the problem with such a high amount of specialization is that if the green ant disappears, so does this spider.
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