Peacock Spider 9 (Maratus amabilis)

The species shown here has the scientific name ’Maratus amabilis’ (amabilis = lovely). When discovered in 1878 only a single specimen was found and curiously that animal remained the only one known to science until in December 2009 I discovered populations in bushland near Sydney and for the first time was able to show what this species really looks like. Pay attention to the hairs moving during the mating scenes. For still images of Maratus ambles go to my flickr set Together with David Hill I wrote a paper about this species which you can download here (might take a couple of minutes) And by the way, the female of this species is still “unknown to science“ Music in order of appearance, all from the premiumbeat website : Together we can (Ben Beiny) Dry and hot in Texas (Francesco D’Andrea) Simply Blue (Phil Gardiner) Dagger (Nicolas Major) Coast (Peter McIsaac) Smells Good