Small Pet Spiders: A Guide to Choosing and Caring for Your Eight-Legged Friend

Small pet spiders suit people who want an animal to watch rather than hold: quiet, compact, and content on a desk or a sheltered shelf. A jumping spider needs less room than a coffee mug, and much of the appeal is simply observing it stalk, leap, and tend its silk. The practical decisions are which species suits your comfort level, how to house it so it cannot escape or overheat, and how to feed it safely. Get the basics right and these are hardy little animals. Get them wrong and the problems are usually simple ones: dehydration, overheating in direct sun, injuries from falls, or old prey left in the enclosure too long.

Popular small pet spiders

Jumping spiders (Salticidae)

Jumping spiders are small, active day-hunters with large forward-facing eyes and a habit of moving in short, deliberate bursts. They do not build big prey-catching webs. Instead they stalk and leap, using excellent vision to judge distance before a strike.^{1, 2} They are often recommended for beginners because they need little space and are easy to watch. Their silk still matters, but it is used more for safety lines and small retreats than for building an orb web.^{1, 2}

One surprise: some jumping spiders manage richer colour vision than was once assumed. Research in Current Biology describes a mechanism that can support trichromatic vision in certain colourful groups.³

Tarantulas (mygalomorph spiders)

"Tarantula" covers a wide range of larger, heavy-bodied spiders kept by hobbyists worldwide. Many species are calm to observe, but docile is not a guarantee. Temperament varies by species and by individual, and handling risks injury to the spider even when bites are not the main concern.⁴ Lifespans are also often much longer than people expect. Some tarantula-like trapdoor relatives in Australia can live for decades in the wild, which shows how long-lived some mygalomorph spiders can be under the right conditions.⁵

Orb-weavers and wolf spiders

These are usually better as observation-only visitors than as pets. Orb-weavers are master builders. Many species construct suspended, wheel-shaped orb webs in the evening and take them down again by morning, recycling silk as they go.⁶ Wolf spiders are active hunters rather than web trappers, and their care needs can be less forgiving in small, dry enclosures. If you are drawn to them, they are often best appreciated outdoors, where their behaviour makes sense at full scale.

Legality and ethics in Australia

Rules about keeping native wildlife, spiders included, vary by state and territory in Australia. Check your local requirements before collecting from the wild or buying a native species, and contact your state or territory wildlife authority if you are unsure. As a general guide, government advice stresses appropriate housing, safe feeding, and careful handling for pet spiders, and warns against leaving enclosures in direct sun.⁴

Housing and habitat

Start with a secure enclosure. It should be escape-proof, well ventilated, and easy to service without chasing the spider around. A clear plastic or glass container works, as long as airflow and a secure closure are built in. Two things matter most: shade, because heat builds fast in small containers and the enclosure should never sit in the sun,⁴ and stability, so keep it somewhere quiet, away from vibrations, other pets, and curious hands.

Most spiders do better with a simple landscape: substrate on the base plus a few pieces of bark, sticks, or leaf litter for cover and climbing. This gives the spider options (shade, height, and hiding places) without cluttering the enclosure into a hazard.⁴

Rather than chasing exact numbers for temperature and humidity, aim for consistency and species-appropriate conditions. Many commonly kept spiders cope well at typical indoor temperatures, provided they are not cooked by sun through glass or dried out by a heat source. Natural day and night light from the room is usually enough. Avoid direct sunlight, and avoid placing the enclosure on heat mats unless you are experienced and monitoring conditions carefully, because small volumes swing quickly.

Feeding and water

Pet spiders are predators. Government guidance notes they commonly take insects such as crickets, moths, flies and grasshoppers, and many keepers use feeder insects bought from pet shops.⁴ Feeding frequency depends on species, size, age, and whether the spider is approaching a moult. As a rough baseline, many pet spiders are fed once or twice a week, adjusted by observation rather than routine.⁴

• Offer prey of an appropriate size. Oversized prey can injure a small spider.
• If you collect insects yourself, make sure they have not been exposed to insecticides.⁴
• Remove uneaten prey if the spider is not feeding, especially during a moult, when it is soft and vulnerable.

For water, some spiders drink readily from a tiny shallow dish such as a plastic bottle cap. Others pick up moisture from damp material. Government advice suggests shallow dishes or a soggy piece of cotton wool, depending on the species' needs.⁴

Handling and interaction

With most spiders, less handling is better handling. It is not just about bites. It is about falls, stress, and damaged limbs. Government guidance recommends handling only when absolutely necessary, and paying close attention to behaviour that suggests the spider is stressed or likely to strike.⁴

Spiders do not bond in the way mammals do, but they show clear, repeatable patterns. A spider that moves slowly, uses cover, and resumes normal activity after you service the enclosure is often coping well. One that bolts, huddles in the open, or repeatedly tries to escape is telling you something is off: light, heat, vibration, or enclosure design.

This is why observing is often the best form of interaction. Watch the spider build, hunt, groom, and choose its resting spots. Orb-weavers, for example, create webs with a mix of sticky and non-sticky silk, and move across their own webs with surprisingly little contact.⁷

Health and lifespan

Most captive problems are preventable and come from the setup rather than the spider. The common ones are overheating, often from sun on the enclosure,⁴ dehydration from dry air or no water source, injuries from falls and unstable decor, and hygiene issues such as mould, mites, or leftover prey. Worrying signs include a spider stuck on its back outside of a normal moult, repeated failed moults, a shrunken abdomen despite access to water, or visible injury. For bites to humans, follow local first-aid guidance and seek medical attention as recommended by health authorities.⁴

Lifespan varies widely. Many jumping spiders are short-lived compared with larger mygalomorph spiders. Some tarantula and trapdoor relatives can be long-lived, with documented cases in Australia showing remarkable longevity under natural conditions.⁵

Why keep a small pet spider

The appeal is a low-space, low-noise animal with a simple routine. A well-set enclosure takes up little room and does not need daily entertainment. The work is mostly water checks, occasional feeding, and keeping the enclosure stable and clean. In return you get a close view of real spider behaviour: jumping spiders show sharp, visual hunting, while orb-weavers show engineering, with webs built fast, rebuilt often, and tuned for flying insects.^{1, 6}

A few things worth knowing

• Jumping spiders are diurnal hunters with excellent vision and strong jumping ability, used to stalk and pounce on prey.¹
• Orb webs are efficient traps: a large capture area for relatively little silk. Many nocturnal orb-weavers rebuild regularly, sometimes recycling silk by eating the old web.⁶
• Some jumping spiders may reach trichromatic vision through optical filtering in the eye, expanding colour perception beyond simple UV and green sensitivity.³

The Bottom Line

A small pet spider is less a companion and more a small, contained habitat you learn to maintain. Keep the enclosure secure, shaded, and suited to the species, and keep feeding and handling restrained, and the spider usually settles into a steady rhythm: stillness, sudden movement, careful maintenance of silk, and long pauses that make the brief moments of action feel sharp. For an observer, that is the point.

References

1. Australian Museum, Jumping spiders
2. Museums Victoria Collections, Salticidae (Jumping Spider)
3. Current Biology (via ScienceDirect), Spectral filtering enables trichromatic vision in colourful jumping spiders
4. Northern Territory Government, Keeping spiders as pets
5. Time, Report on the 43-year-old trapdoor spider ("Number 16") and typical trapdoor lifespans (based on Curtin University research)
6. Australian Museum, Spider webs (orb webs and web-building behaviour)
7. Australian Museum, Spider facts (movement on orb webs and silk properties)
8. Australian Museum, Golden orb-weaving spiders
9. Australian Museum, Garden orb-weaving spiders