Wednesday Weirdness

Image credit Jurgen Otto

 

Okay even for me this is weird. I swear Australia must have been the test lab for evolution because the variety of weirdness in some of our animals that defies classification along normal standards is pretty  impressive. However THIS little honey takes out the Gold Medal in the World of Weird as far as I am concerned.

Even someone as blase as I am about the variety of the strange and the beautiful would be frozen in shock when faced with this little beauty in the flesh. I ask you who has heard of a spider with feathers, let alone feathers resembling the headpiece of a Vegas Showgirl. I swear ONLY in Australia does the wildlife get this bizarre.

This stunning creature was actually first discovered in 1994 at Cape Le Grand in Western Australia, but has now been formally described in the journal Peckhamia by biologist Jurgen Otto and the editor of the journal David Hill. According to Otto, although the distinct spotty pattern is unique to this species, the cat-like behavior is in fact shared by all jumping spiders when they approach prey.[IFLScience] Apparently there are 27 known species of Jumping Peacock Spiders and guess what – they’re all found in Australia. It’s not enough that we have more deadly animals than any other country now they have to be stylish as well.

Our boy Otto managed to capture some film of one strutting its stuff and WOW I’m still not sure if I’m amazed or simply in shock.  It appears that the males are the more exotic of the species and in my opinion could give the boys from Priscilla Queen of the Desert a run for their money. Here you’ll see them attempting to get the attention of the females, some of whom are just not interested but I will say the boys are persistent in their pursuit despite being ignored or attacked.