Peacock Spider

People who photograph peacock spiders often hope to find unnamed species. Of course, that adds significantly to our knowledge, and there is something understandably exciting about discovering a new animal and naming it. However, personally I get more satisfaction from documenting a species that already has a name, but has been so poorly illustrated that nobody really knows what it looks like. And this is a story about such a spider, Maratus splendens. But first I have to take you on a little detour. 

Not long after coming across Maratus volans near Sydney (story 1), I learned about a species called Maratus pavonis. It was a species that R.A. Dunn named in 1947 and the only peacock spider species whose courtship display was known. The way Dunn described the male’s courtship dance in 1957, by way of an article about “Hector” who he had found while cutting grass in his garden, is very entertaining and well worth the read. If Dunn had had the camera technology available today, I am sure he would have popularized peacock spiders there and then. However, sadly very few people took any notice of his description at the time.

I was keen to add photographs of Maratus pavonis to my collection. I was told it had been found close to where I live and that it even frequents residential areas. I hadn’t come across it so far, neither in my garden, nor in other places nearby. I decided to check out Lane Cove national park in Sydney. Not far from where I live, it had a small creek running through it and a path alongside, nice for a stroll. It is a popular place for picnics, bike and canoe rides, or feeding the ducks, lots of variety. It is interesting how much the vegetation there differed from Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park where I had found Maratus volans. It was a substantially lusher, with much taller trees and ferns. Even if no pavonis turned up, this was a good place to come and enjoy a pleasant afternoon. 

I walked along the small muddy track along the creek bank and after 10 mins amongst the ferns and mosses I spotted a very small, slender spider, much smaller than volans, lifting a white-tipped leg and then lowering it to the ground. I was ecstatic. This was the tell-tale sign of a peacock spider, the way they signal to the female when they are not in direct sight. I also spotted a drab looking female nearby, which these signals were aimed at. The female looked a little different from those of Maratus volans, and was much shier by comparison. She disappeared into the wet leaf litter as soon as I approached. The male was nimble and much harder to photograph than volans, in particular in this kind of dark and wet environment. I caught some males and females and took them home to study in more detail. I strongly suspected I had found Maratus pavonis, and I hoped the photographs would confirm this. 

The males displayed to the female as I had hoped, and the photographs indeed revealed a scarlet coloured ring on the abdomen that looked very much like that in pavonis. I had no reason to think I had found anything different. It wasn’t a new species and it was known to be quite common, but I was happy to have added another peacock spider to my photographic collection. 

A few months later I holidayed in Tasmania. I ended up discovering another peacock spider, right next to the beach at Stanley where we stayed. Definitely a highlight of that holiday and David Hill and I later named this species Maratus tasmanicus. However, what I also found there were several individuals of pavonis. This wasn’t too surprising, I had heard this spider occurred there and it wasn’t very far as the crow flies from where it had originally been described, Melbourne, albeit across the Bass strait. However, these pavonis looked different from the pavonis I had photographed in Sydney. The Tasmanian ones were larger and more robust, and their flaps were much smaller, almost non-existent. What was going on here?  

I consulted with David Hill and he pointed me to a publication by the Australian arachnologist William Joseph Rainbow who had described a spider under the name Attus splendens (now Maratus splendens) from Sydney, in 1896.  Nobody had reported seeing another specimen since it was named.  From the publication it appeared quite similar to pavonis. I remembered talking to a Maratus expert at the Western Australian Museum about it. She told me that splendens wasn’t really worth chasing, she was certain it was just another name for pavonis, a synonym as it is called scientifically, and she was about to announce that synonymy formally. Could splendens, although superficially similar to pavonis, actually be a separate species?  Could I have rediscovered a spider that had gone missing for 115 years ? 

Rainbow’s illustrations of splendens were very simple, black and white line drawings that looked more like caricatures than realistic drawings. There was clearly some artistic license here. They showed large abdominal flaps, consistent with the Sydney specimens. However there was another more important character. I had noticed a steely-blue band of scales across the carapace of the Sydney specimens, and did not remember seeing those in any photographs of pavonis. I checked my Tasmanian specimens and they too lacked this band.  Dunn also did not mentioned this character. What about splendens ? Yes, indeed. Rainbow had described it, and this steely-blue band was clearly a character that distinguished his species from Maratus pavonis. 

So, the long lost Maratus splendens had made a reappearance. David Hill and I went on to illustrate both Maratus pavonis and Maratus splendens in detail, and to compare their features and behaviour. You can read about this in Peckhamia 89.1. Maratus splendens has since then become a household name among photographers, rightly so, and every time I see another photograph posted on social media, correctly identified as Maratus splendens, I feel some gratification. I think William Joseph Rainbow would be very pleased about the recognition the spider he named in 1896 now receives, and I feel honoured to be the person who gave it that recognition.