Scared of spiders? Best you stop reading, because tucked away in a lab is a spider that hunts other spiders, learns from its mistakes, looks before it leaps and might actually be smarter than mammals.
Dr Simon Pollard and fellow spider biologist Dr Robert Jackson have been livingand breathing super-smart arachnids at the University of Canterbury for almost 30 years.
Portia labiata is their star, and the female Portia is smarter and more deadly than the male.
She looks like a speck of dirt and moves, says Pollard "like a baby robot learning to walk".
But when this spider gets hungry, she also gets horribly, scarily smart.
"In a way jumping spiders have the eyesight of a primate and the cunning of a small mammal," Pollard says. "And Portia seems to be especially cunning as it preys on other spiders, including other jumping spiders, which is like lions hunting tigers."
Portia remembers rhythms she's tried with particular spiders, and knows what's worked and what hasn't. She knows some spiders spit - and remembers to keep her distance. When hunting spitting spiders, she will sneak around for hours until she's in a position to drop down right on top of them.
It gets worse.
In lab tests, Portia was placed on top of a tall piece of dowelling.
She could see another spider on a platform nearby, but to eat it she had to climb down the dowelling and up one of two long wires. If she went up the wrong wire, she would end up nowhere near her meal.
Portia was extremely good at this game. She would sit for almost an hour before moving, using her primate-like eyesight to build up a picture of the best route.
Then she would track on down and straight up the right wire. If she started on the wrong one, she'd quickly turn around and start again.
Luckily, Portia won't survive here; she prefers the warm, tropical rainforests of Australia, Asia and Africa.
