Home News 7 new species of peacock spider discovered

7 new species of peacock spider discovered

Seven new species of peacock spiders have been discovered. Image credit: Footage and photos courtesy Jurgen Otto

A Sydney scientist and photographer, Dr Jürgen Otto, has described seven new species of peacock spider from the southern coast of South Australia and Western Australia.

Endemic to Australia, the tiny beauties (4-6mm) are renowned the world-over for their amazing courtship dances.

Related: Dance of the tiny peacock spider

The latest discoveries, described this month in the journal Peckhamia, bring the total number of confirmed species in this family of jumping spiders to 48.

Jürgen discovered the new species with Perth-based spider expert, David Knowles, and described and named them with US-based spider expert David Hill.

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