Wiggle-waggle for survival

August 27, 2020 10:00am IST

    While peacocks are known for their bonnie dance, these peacock spiders are known for hokey pokey dance showing off their stylish fans. Both perform to please the females, but it is a life or death challenge for the spiders. If the courtship display is not appealing enough, the female eats up the male spider.

The peacock spiders (genus Maratus) belong to the family of jumping spiders (Salticidae) and are chiefly found in temperate regions of Australia and China. They grow up to 5mm max, are venomous, but cannot harm humans as they can’t even pierce our skin. Spinning webs? No, they don’t do that; instead, they hunt minuscule flies and other insects. The sneak and pounce technique like lions, help them catch their prey and have a nice meal. With two large central eyes conveying finer details, they have 6-8 eyes to cover a wider area. It is to help them forage and stay aware of the surrounding activities.

Males have a vibrant and colorful abdomen with lateral flaps and long hairy third pair of appendages for courtship display. Such coloration is obtained from microscopic scales present all over the body, especially the flap. Females are tough, strong, and less attractive with plain brown color, they’re pretty picky for mating. Hence the ‘peacock’ before these spiders resembles the similarity in their behavior with the peacocks.

Mostly they live solitarily until the mating season, which is from August to December. During this time, when the male is looking for a mate, he waves the third pair of legs to catch the female’s attention. When he finally spots a female, he begins the courtship by making vibrations which are picked up by the female’s legs. If the female pays attention, he will raise his abdomen, extend the fan flaps, and wiggle waggle accompanied by the third leg movements. If the female doesn’t pay attention, the male produces more intense vibrations to get so. In a study conducted, it was observed that out of 64 mating trials, only 16 males were successful; it showed how picky females are.

Although the immense range of iridescent designs on different species makes each of them unique and charming, those big eyes make them look cute, and the spiderlings even cuter. Talking of the babies, the female lays around half a dozen eggs at a time. She patrols over them nonstop and without food for about two weeks until they hatch. It does mean almost the end of her, but the young ones are worth it.

Until now, 85 species have been discovered, with most named after the person who found them. A book from the 1970s called them “gliding spiders,” it was believed that these spiders could fly. However, later, it was proved that they could not. When you observe them for the first time, your eyes could believe the story because of their quick and high jumps in reality. That’s what happened with Dr. Otto, who later discovered many species of peacock spiders. He’s renowned for his love for these little creatures as the peacock spider man. You can imagine how strenuous of a task it must be to spot and film these mini little creatures that are smaller than your nail.