Peacock Spider - Maratus volans (male)

This cute little jumping spider was about5 mm long. The black cephalothorax had white and orange stripes in the anterior part and just white stripes in the posterior section. The abdomen had beautiful orange blue and green colours with iridescence. legs were covered with setae and the palps were fluffy with white setae.
Spotted near a creek in dappled shade (Cardinia Reservoir Park)
No close-ups were possible (with a pocket camera) as this spider was very wary and kept moving away.

comments (2)

Ferdy Christant

Lion

Oh my, I'm so jealous. I could spend a whole day with this creature and a macro lens!

And how about those poor beautiful males:
"If the male continues his dance when the female is not interested, she will attempt to attack, kill, and feed on him" Posted 8 years ago

Leuba Ridgway

Lion

Thanks for the video Ferdie. Isn't he handsome and talented ? . I think mine does the Samba - just to be different ! I too was horrified when I heard what his fate could be after all that leg-waving & those wonderful colours.
I found another species in the same place last year so you can imagine how excited I was to see that this one was a Maratus and yet another species. I am told that only 5 years ago we only had about 8 species identified but since then people have gone crazy looking for them- now we have between 35 and 40 very different looking ones and some others still to be named.
I wish I had better equipment and actually capture him with his flap-up. Posted 8 years ago