somehow my relationship with the spiders i see changed when i realized they are all ladies
like, for most species, if it's big enough to notice, it's probably a female spider.
the males are often, like, a micro version, up to 100 times smaller than females of the same species.
here's a male and a female of the same species, for example
(that's not a big female spider either, it's just a close up shot) The males can be so small one could actually be riding on a female you saw and you might never notice
like, i'm gonna show you a female spider with a male and i want you to know that in the picture of the two, the female spider is like roughly the same size as this spider
right, so the next female spider is roughly the same size and shape as the one in that person's hand up there... and then next to her foot is a male of her same species
right, so you.. you basically never see the males, even if they are right out in front of you somewhere, because they are so small they are literally beneath your notice. So any spider you see and notice, is likely to be a female.
This isn't true of all spiders, and it sort of seems like if they are a furry spider (be they little jumping spiders like wolf spiders or big ol' tarantulas) males are more likely to be closer to the female, something like half or a third the size of her size, and many of the tiniest little fuzzy jumping spiders the males and females seem to be nearly the same size, but for most of the house spiders and garden spiders (cupboard spiders and orb weavers and such) if you see them, they're probably ladies.
and knowing that, for whatever reason, has sort of changed how i relate to the spiders i see around
