Dancing Peacock Spider Is a Web Sensation

A male Maratus personatus. — A male Maratus personatus lifts a leg as part of his impressive mating dance.

(Image credit: Jürgen Otto)

This story was updated at 3:12 p.m. ET.

If you don't think spiders are super-cute, then you've probably never seen Maratus personatus perform its very elaborate, oh-so-adorable mating dance.

The males of this newly described species of peacock spider get seriously groovy when wooing lady spiders, and, luckily for arachnophiles, one biologist thinks their dance moves are worthy of recording (and then setting to funky music). Jürgen Otto, a mite biologist and peacock spider enthusiast at the Australian Department of Agriculture in Sydney, maintains a YouTube channel devoted to sharing the mating dances of these spiders in a way that even arachnophobes can appreciate.

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There are a lot of reasons why M. personatus could be called cute. For one thing, it's tiny. Males are only about an eighth of an inch long (they range in size from 0.15 to 0.18 inches, or 3.84 to 4.59 millimeters). Then there's the whole superhero mask thing they have going on; males have a blue band encircling their heads that contrasts nicely with the black-and-white stripes lining the rest of the body.

To get a female to notice him, a Blueface male raises one set of legs over his body while scuttling back and forth in front of his love, Otto and Hill found in their study of the newfound spider. The male's front appendages, or pedipalps, move rapidly as he tries to enchant the female with his slick moves. Unlike some peacock spiders, M. personatus doesn't resort to belly dancing (otherwise known as fan extending) to get the girl. If his dance doesn't attract a female, he has his attractive coloring — which is also meant to help him lure the ladies — to fall back on.

The biologist said he first became interested in recording the behaviors of these spiders after hiking in bushland near Sydney, where all eight of the 40 known species of peacock spiders live (the other species are endemic to other parts of Australia). Otto was surprised by the nimbleness with which the small spiders jumped. It wasn’t until later that he learned of their awe-inspiring mating rituals and decided that someone ought to film them.

Earlier this year, Otto co-authored a report describing two more species of peacock spiders, Maratus jactatus and Maratus sceletus. Nicknamed Sparklemuffin and Skeletorus, respectively, these two colorful arachnids exhibit some pretty awesome dance moves of their own. A male Skeletorus even adds a little something extra to the courtship dance — he flexes a leg as if showing off his muscles, Otto told Live Science in February.