New mate-eating spider species found in Australia

While footage of the dances is proving popular online, some female peacock spiders end up eating the colourful males if they are not impressed by the courtship. The discovery of the new spiders means there are now 48 known species, found mostly in southern Australia and which range in size from three to five millimeters. Juveniles measure just half-a-millimetre. 

Jurgen Otto, with the help of colleague David Knowles, made the two latest discoveries of the miniature creatures while looking for other spiders in Western Australia in November and had all seven named in the scientific journal Peckhamia last month. “They are very, very colourful, they often have iridescent scales and they do something quite remarkable. They perform a courtship dance for females, to impress them,” Otto said on Monday. 

The Sydney scientist, who studies mites during the day, developed a passion for the tiny spiders in 2005 after discovering an arachnid on a photograph he took following a bushwalk in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, New South Wales. The dancing spiders offer no threat to humans. 

“They are harmless, they are cute, they are colourful, they remind people of their own cat,” said Otto.