These Aussie spiders lure lovers with their amazing abdominal art

They are the world’s most flamboyant – and flirtatious – arachnids: Australia’s jumping maratus spiders, also known as ‘peacock’ spiders, for the magnificent patterns on the males’ posteriors.

Once a female is spotted, it’s showtime, and they kick off the courtship ritual by waiving their two front legs, followed by an elaborate booty-shaking dance.

Measuring only 4-6mm in size, these tiny spiders are smaller than a grain of rice, so to fully appreciate the incredible aesthetics on display on this tiny living canvas, artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso used microscopic deep focus photographs to zoom in on each of the spiders’ colored scales.

“He is colorful and outlandish, she is not. He tries really hard to get her, she watches him. Hard to please females have driven the maratus males to such extremes that they are the probably the first ever performance artists: they dance and choreography, drum and sing, all at the same time as they wave their colorful tails,” Cardoso explains.

The Colombian-born artist lives in Australia and is known for blending nature, art, science and technology to explore the connections between society and the natural world.