Why You Should Love the Peacock Spider
This little guy can dance to the “Y.M.C.A.”
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Transcript
My name is Melissa Petronella.
I handle, like, a lot of, under loved branches of the tree of life.
One of my favorite spiders is a peacock spider. For anybody who's afraid of spiders, it's so cute and fascinating. And I think it's really like a gateway spider. They're very small. They're about the size of a grain of rice. And so that tones down some of the ick factor people might have.
Peacock spiders like their bird counterparts, the males put on this really elaborate display, hoping to catch the eye of a female. And he starts dancing around and he makes, vibration because peacock spiders aren't cute enough, the scientists had to call that the rumble rumps.
Then he unfolds his iridescent abdomen and he lifts it up and he starts waving it around.
This dance is really important cause not only is he hoping obviously to mate at the end of this, but if
she's not impressed, she might eat him.
The first time I heard about Peacock Spider was, from the internet, somebody somewhere have put the peacock spiders dance to the YMCA song, asked Britannica if we need an article on these spiders. And I helped write that article in the end.
What motivates a lot of my work is people only protect what they love. And people only love what they know.
At the beginning of this millennium, there was about 20 species of peacock spiders known. But thanks to the internet, there's now 100 species of peacock spiders that we know of, capturing the public's attention can do a lot for furthering science.
My hope is that if you start with peacock spiders, you might open the door to greater appreciation for all, all arachnids, they're all amazing, keep sharing them with everybody. I just love them so much.
I handle, like, a lot of, under loved branches of the tree of life.
One of my favorite spiders is a peacock spider. For anybody who's afraid of spiders, it's so cute and fascinating. And I think it's really like a gateway spider. They're very small. They're about the size of a grain of rice. And so that tones down some of the ick factor people might have.
Peacock spiders like their bird counterparts, the males put on this really elaborate display, hoping to catch the eye of a female. And he starts dancing around and he makes, vibration because peacock spiders aren't cute enough, the scientists had to call that the rumble rumps.
Then he unfolds his iridescent abdomen and he lifts it up and he starts waving it around.
This dance is really important cause not only is he hoping obviously to mate at the end of this, but if
she's not impressed, she might eat him.
The first time I heard about Peacock Spider was, from the internet, somebody somewhere have put the peacock spiders dance to the YMCA song, asked Britannica if we need an article on these spiders. And I helped write that article in the end.
What motivates a lot of my work is people only protect what they love. And people only love what they know.
At the beginning of this millennium, there was about 20 species of peacock spiders known. But thanks to the internet, there's now 100 species of peacock spiders that we know of, capturing the public's attention can do a lot for furthering science.
My hope is that if you start with peacock spiders, you might open the door to greater appreciation for all, all arachnids, they're all amazing, keep sharing them with everybody. I just love them so much.