Tiny peacock spiders make up for size in pizzazz! Males, like the Maratus volans pictured here, are only about 0.2 inches (5 millimeters) long, but they’re famous for their flashy midsection and leg-raising mating dance. To enchant a female, they display a flap-like body part called a fan. There are more than 40 peacock species including one, Maratus jactatus, that was nicknamed Sparklemuffin for its iridescent scales. It’s a lot to impress a potential mate, but there's a lot at stake: if a female spider doesn’t like a males’ dance moves, she might just eat him alive. Photo: © Adam Fletcher/Biosphoto/Ardea.com from @pbsnature
