In 2005 when I found my first peacock spider in bushland near Sydney, six species were in the genus Maratus, which has become synonymous with the term “peacock spider”. These six species were Maratus volans, Maratus amabilis, Maratus pavonis, Maratus splendens, Maratus vespertilio, and Maratus mungaich.
Photographs had been published for Maratus volans, all other species in that group were known only from drawings or descriptions. The nature of the male Maratus volans display was still unknown in 2005. The flaps that people could see folded along the side of the male were thought to assist them in gliding. However, it was known since 1957 that Maratus pavonis had a courtship display. Even though it had not been documented in photographs or videos it had been beautifully described in an article that appeared in the journal Walkabout (scroll to pages 40-41 in that digital document, or printed page numbers 39-40 in the book).
A few other species that we today include in the genus Maratus were had also been named at the time, namely Maratus speciosus, Maratus speculifer, Maratus anomalus and Maratus nigromaculatus. But they were still classified in other genera and people had not recognised their similarities with the other peacock spiders. The main reason for this was that they were poorly known. The descriptions did not contain a lot of detail and in some cases were not accompanied by useful illustrations either. So it was not really clear what they looked like, even though they had a name, and their behaviour was also unknown.