No, it's not poisonous. We've seen a lot of these spiders while out hiking this autumn but this is the first picture that turned out. They're quite difficult to get the camera to focus on for some reason. I do only have a point-and-shoot which is likely part of the problem.
Spiders don't bother me - I think they're pretty cool. These ones are neat because they're so multicoloured. From far away they all look the same but close up the different markings make them quite distinguishable. They all have a black base with coloured patterns on their legs and bodies. This one was purple, yellow and black. We've seen some with up to five different colours on them: orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.
I was hesitant to pick one of these ones up because they've got some formidable looking mandibles. But when we get spiders in our house I catch them and put them outside. Actually, when Aimee points them out I catch them and put them outside. If Aimee doesn't point them out I just let them roam around our apartment. Usually they're just jumping spiders - those are my favourite. I think they're cute and they're a lot of fun to watch jump around. I'm fascinated by the fact that they can jump distances up to 10 times their body length. That would be 20 meters for someone my size.
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