September Monthly Meeting and AGM – Speaker: Stuart Harris “Canberra’s small and silent peacocks” Peacock Spiders

Our guest speaker is Stewart Harris

His topic: Peacock Spiders

In 2008, Stuart Harris was testing his new macro lens in Namadgi National Park and came across a little blue and red spider on a bright yellow leaf. The tiny spider was a new species and would change the course of his life. He had taken a photo of a peacock spider, or Maratus, a tiny jumping spider endemic to Australia. This minute arachnid, just four millimetres long, is nicknamed the peacock spider because of the way in which they raise and fan their colourful abdomen to attract females.