Two new peacock spiders identified in Western Australia

Biologist Jürgen Otto and colleagues have named two species of the extraordinarily colourful dancing spiders

Lisa Cox

Sat 21 Jul 2018 23.14 BSTLast modified on Sun 22 Jul 2018 03.25 BST

It is only a few millimetres in size, performs a dance as part of a courtship ritual and has striking coloured markings on its back that “look like a pharaoh’s headdress”.

But when biologist Jürgen Otto first spotted the peacock spider species he has named Maratus unicup, he didn’t immediately recognise how special it was.

“I didn’t think much of it because I’m partially colour blind,” he says. “But there was quite a reaction to photographs of it on the internet, with people saying it’s beautiful.”

Otto discovered the spider near Lake Unicup in Western Australia last year. He said the new species was notable for its courtship display in which the male dances – swinging its abdomen from side to side – while the female watches from a close distance.

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Tiny Dancers: Meet 7 New Peacock Spider Species

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | June 3, 2016 07:31am ET

They're fuzzy. They're colorful. And they wave their legs in the air like they just don't care .

They're peacock spiders, a group of tiny arachnids that are small in stature but giants in the charisma department, best known for their brilliant colors and energetic courtship "dances" — much like the showy, fan-tailed peacocks that inspired the spiders' name.

And scientists recently described seven new peacock spider species — so let the spider dance party commence! 

Researchers found the newly described species — all of which were in the genus Maratus — in Western Australia and South Australia, bringing the total number of known Maratus species to 48. The spiders in this genus measure on average about 0.16 to 0.20 inches (4 to 5 millimeters) in length, with females a bit larger than the males.

Females that belong to this genus tend to be dappled in different shades of brown. But it's the males' dramatic coloration that catches the eye and prompts biologists to assign them whimsical nicknames like "Sparklemuffin," which was bestowed upon a peacock spider species described in 2015. Colors and patterns are displayed on the males' abdomens, frequently on a "fan" — a flat structure that is lifted up toward the female during the male's courtship performance.

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