Sesame Street

These are all jumping spiders, they have advanced eyes somewhat similar to ours. Other spiders don’t have this “iris-like” appendage.

As the eyes are too close together to allow depth perception, and the animals do not make use of motion parallax, they have instead evolved a method called image defocus. Of the four photoreceptor layers in the retina, the two closest to the surface contain a UV-sensitive opsin (visual pigment), while the two deepest contain a green-sensitive opsin. The incoming green light is only focused on the deepest layer, while the other one receives defocused or fuzzy images. By measuring the amount of defocus from the fuzzy layer, calculating the distance to the objects in front of them is possible.

To explain this in simpler terms, their lenses focus the light on the deepest part of their retina, which is explicitly fuzzy for the surface part since it's necessarily out of focus due to the distance between layers. Then their little jumping spider brains calculate how far something is based on the difference in fuzziness. Meaning they could theoretically judge that distance and jump on a flying insect with one eye. Eat your heart out depth perception using mammals.

Top left looks like it's hiding behind 2 koosh balls.

i love them

is there a spider community here? i want one

Superb spiders indeed, but these are not owls.

I bet all of these were taken after they told them they are beautiful!