The Zebra spider is my favourite of all spiders. It's only small – the one above is as big as I've seen them and its body is only about 8mm long – but it's extremely characterful. Playful even! They usually stop to look up at you as demonstrated above and will sometimes jump onto your finger if offered.

These are jumping spiders that hunt by roaming around and pouncing on prey. You can see that two of the eyes are very large and point straightforward to give them the excellent binocular vision required for accurate pouncing. They can even pounce when on vertical surfaces, since they always use a line of silk as a rope to anchor themselves. This enables them to 'undo' their jump on any surface, by reeling themselves in to try again.