Peacock spiders must impress a prospective mate, or they may get eaten. Male spiders are brightly colored and perform a weird dance and song to impress the female. Aggressive females can kill and eat the male suitors whose dance moves don’t impress. The name peacock spider comes from the spider's flap-like abdomen it raises in courtship rituals to display colors like a peacock.

The dance is unique to species and involves waving the long hind legs, lifting up the abdomen, moving from side to side and moving back and forth towards the potential mate. In between dances, there are pauses during which the male drums with its legs on the ground or sporadically on the female’s head. The vibrations transmitted to the female, cause it to get aroused.

The female signals by turning towards or away from the potential suitor. If the female dislikes the male, it may perform quick shakes of its abdomen or attack and eat up the prospective suitor, which makes courtship a dangerous affair for the suitor.

In a study by a Ph.D. student Madeline Girard of the University of California, Madeline and her team collected 64 spider pairs and put them in conditions they can mate with each other. She found out that of the 64 dances only 16 impressed and wooed females to mate. Madeline noticed that the female spiders were more impressed by the beauty of the suitor than the dance.

Scientists have identified 44 species in the genus Maratus to which peacock spiders belong.  They belong to the jumping spider family known by the name Salticidae. It is the largest family comprising of about 635 genera and 6080 species. The females and males grow up to 5 mm in length. The immature male spiders and mature female spiders are brown in color, but their color patterns can quickly identify them.