Last year I reviewed a fun novelty set called Cute Silkworm by Tarlin. The set included four stylized figures of silkworm moths representing the ecdysis process. In 2025 they reissued that set with a slightly different color for the moths (light beige rather than pure white). Later in 2025 they produced another ‘Cute’ set, and the focus of today’s review, Cute Spider! This set contains four stylized spiders exhibiting different behaviors. While the name of the set is simply ‘Spider’ it is clear they are jumping spiders. Based on the color, including the sexual dimorphism (more on that below), I am concluding they represent Adanson’s house jumper, Hasarius adansoni. Besides, H. adansoni is the only jumping spider species that I know to have been made more than once, by Kaiyodo in 2016 and Toys Spirits in 2022. Hasarius adansoni is believed to be native to Africa and the Middle East, but has been introduced around the world via commerce and now occurs throughout much of the world in warmer climates, the Americas, Europe, India, Laos, Vietnam, China, Japan, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Being an anthropophilic species, it gets around easily, probably on introduced vegetation in gardens and greenhouses.
While stylized, the spiders in the set are well sculpted and things that companies often get wrong, namely the eye arrangement, are correct! They all have a body size of roughly 3.0 cm, for a scale of 7.5:1-3.9:1 for the males and 4.3:1-3.2:1 for the female. The figures will be presented in the order they appear on the accompanying paperwork.
The first figure is labeled ‘normal with water droplet’ (although interestingly, next to the photo on the paperwork it translates that the spider and sake are separate pieces; is the drop intended to be sake???). But yes, it is a male spider in a fairly neural pose with a clear piece of plastic that serves as a droplet of water (or sake) to put on its head. I think this is intended to emphasize how small the spiders are in nature (4-10 mm, depending on the sex), that they could essentially wear a drop of water like a hat!
The second figure is labeled ‘drinking water’ and with its cephalothorax down and abdomen up, that’s exactly what it appears to be doing! The water, like the droplet with the first figure, is a separate piece!
The third figure is a female guarding her eggs. Hasarius adansoni is sexually dimorphic. While males are mostly black with red around the eyes and white markings, including on the palps, females are brown with lighter markings. This female is cocked to her right with her front, right leg raised, perhaps in response to a would-be predator after her eggs. Like the water that accompanies the first two figures, the egg cluster is a separate piece of plastic.
The last figure is the most interesting. It is labeled ‘dangling’ and features a spider riding a strand of silk (represented by clear plastic permanently affixed to the rear of the abdomen). While jumping spiders do not construct webs, they do use silk as a ‘safety line’. This acts as a safety net, allowing a spider to return to its starting point if it misses its target when leaping.
This is a fun novelty set, but it is probably best suited for insect/arthropod/invertebrate specialists (like me!) or collectors of interesting taxa. The Kaiyodo version is probably a more realistic representation of the species, however. I wonder what ‘Cute’ critters await us in the future…
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