Polly's Story

                                  Hello and welcome to Sassy Critters - Polly's story. 

     Polly is a little guy with a very big attitude. Polly is known as a Bold jumping spider who lives all over North America. Polly came to live with me, a 1st time spider mom, at 2 months old. He was born in a pet store, where he was all alone .. luckily I found him and brought him home. Polly seemed so excited when I showed him his new home! He jumped right in his new house. He explored his new house up and down, side to side. I think Polly knew he found a new home that was warm and cozy. He was even happier when I gave him his dinner. For dinner he had 3 fruit flies and then he put himself to bed on the hammock I had made him out of a sock!

    The next day Polly must have been tired from the drive home from the pet store and all the exploring he did when he got to his new home because he slept for half the day!

    This is Polly, as you can see he's a little bit shy. Can you see him peeking through the leaves?

    

     Polly is very precious and very loved, I wish everybody loved jumping spiders because spiders have feelings to. They might look scary ... especially the big ones but they get sad to when people are not nice to them. They get angry too, Polly gets angry sometimes, either he would like a worm or perhaps he just woke up angry, that's ok, I just give him some alone time because its ok to feel angry or sad sometimes. I'm still scared of spiders, that's why I got a small one. Mabey one day I'll get a big hairy Tarantula, I heard that they are actually very nice spiders. But for now I think I'll stick to Polly and jumping spider sized spiders. Polly is no bigger than my pinky nail .. even when he's full grown, he will be the size of my pinky nail! What's cuter than that?

    This is how big Polly was when I first brought him home. He was so small. He is growing into a bigger boy now. Polly has made a web or a hammock out of silk and is 'molting' or shedding his skin because that is what happens when you grow up, spiders just do it a little differently. Its very stressful for spiders to shed and grow, just like kids growing up are stressed or sad or even feel different. I am sure Polly feels different. He has been in his hammock for almost a whole week now. Growing up can make anyone or anything tired.

    That's Polly in her hammock, he is having a big rest after he molted, or shed his skin. A spiders skin is actually called an exoskeleton, thats where their bones grow on the outside of their body and ours grow on the inside so little jumping spiders are very fragile and have to be treated with great care. I am learning a lot about jumping spiders, I hope you are to.

     I have learnt that every jumping spider has it's own personality, they have feeling and know how to express them, they get all the same feeling as us humans do but Polly and other spider can't talk or make sounds to  tell you how they feel, so you have to make you best guess by watching their actions. For example, I put my hand in Pollys cage to give him a worm and I accidently broke one of his web's, WELL ... he looked at me and waved his arms and started stomping his feet, he was very upset and mad. So I shut his cage door and walked away to give him his space and to let Polly calm down. When he finally calmed down,we said our sorrys, I gave him a cricket and we both went to bed.