The Sexy Dance Moves of Male Peacock Spiders
Spider lovers, get out your dancing shoes: Arachnologists in Australia have found seven new species of the colorful creatures known as peacock spiders, tiny jumping spiders notable for their bright rumps and disco-like mating rituals.
Since 2013, spider enthusiasts Jürgen Otto and David Knowles have been on a mission to formally identify peacock spiders Knowles had seen previously but hadn’t gotten the chance to name.
On one trip late last year, the amateur arachnologists walked along the edge of Lake Jasper in Western Australia with the sun beating down on them. Otto says he wasn’t expecting to find any spiders, since these animals shy away from the heat.
But the spider hunters got a pleasant surprise when Knowles spotted something crawling along