Sparklemuffin peacock spider: The spider with secret iridescent scales that busts a move to win a mate
Name: Sparklemuffin peacock spider (Maratus jactatus)
Where it lives: Wondul Range National Park, Queensland, Australia
What it eats: Small insects and arthropods
Why it’s awesome: These colorful critters don’t just dress to the nines to woo their mate. Males also do a sexy shimmy to dazzle the ladies.
Measuring no bigger than 0.2 inches (0.5 centimeters), the sparklemuffin peacock spider is, arguably, one of the cutest spiders around. These jumping spiders were discovered as a new species in 2015.
Females are a dull brownish gray but — like their namesake, the peacock — male sparklemuffins pull out all the stops in the outfit department. With their striking red and blue backs, they look similar to kicking peacock spiders (Maratus calcitrans) and fingers peacock spiders (Maratus digitatus).
But they have a secret up their sleeve that makes them unique: a small flap on the side of their abdomen that they can extend to show off iridescent blue scales.
In case their gaudy garb isn’t enough to impress, the males also know how to bust a move. Their Latin name (jactatus) means “rocking” or “jolting” because of the thrusting dance they perform for prospective mates.
Related: Surprisingly-bad acting is key to jumping spider’s survival
During courtship, males unfold their fan — a flap on their abdomen used in courtship — and tilt it to one side. At the same time, they lift up their third leg on the same side, lower it slowly then whip it back up, like someone teasing a dog by dangling its toy just out of reach. This jerking motion makes their whole body waggle around, creating vibrations that the female can sense through the ground.
“When [the male] got within a few centimeters of the female, he exploded into a firework of activity,” entomologist Jürgen Otto, who wrote the paper describing the species and runs the website Peacock Spider, previously told Live Science.
The species was discovered by a graduate student called Madeline Girard who nicknamed it “sparklemuffin.” She discovered another species at the same time and gave it the moniker “Skeletorus” because of its striking black and white markings that look like a Halloween skeleton costume.
Otto believes there could still be many more species of peacock spider out there. “Despite the large number of species we have discovered just in the last few years, I can’t help feeling that we may have just scratched the surface of this most exciting group of spiders,” he said, “and that nature has quite a few more surprises in store.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 12:40 p.m. ET to correct a measurement conversation.
