Earning stage names like Skeletorus and Sparklemuffin, male peacock spiders perform a colorful song and dance nearly unrivaled in the animal kingdom. But a new study shows that their main audience—the females they aim to woo—don’t impress so easily.

The new findings, published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, emphasize the remarkable extent to which males across the animal kingdom compete for the affection of a single female.

Peacock spiders’ recently discovered courtship displays are among the gaudiest and most complex ever discovered, a fact made all the more surprising by their size. The little audiovisual spectacle measures less than a quarter-inch (five millimeters) long.

“The combination of complex mammal-like behaviours, their small size, [and] their color patterns