Wildlife Australia - Spring 2017

Few can match the marriage of grotesque

and gaudy that is the spiny orb-weaver.

But now the limelight has shifted. Move

over orb-weavers, with the advent of

digital macrophotography, the jumping

spiders are here – the new stars of the

show. With Bambi eyes, a narcissistic

tendency to stare at themselves in a

lens, and outrageous colours, jumping

spiders are almost everyone’s favourite.

And not just the famous peacock spiders

either. Don’t overlook the iridescent

colour of Cosmophasis species, many

with remarkable camouflage, or the

sensational ant mimics.

Outside of these two big families,

there’s admirable coverage of any

spider you care to think of: wolf

spiders, huntsman spiders, tarantulas,

funnelwebs, they’re all here, from all

over Australia. My favourites remain

the bolas spiders, who have abandoned

weaving to take up the arts of moth-

seduction. The Celaenia bolas spider on

page 98 might not be everyone’s idea of

beauty, but its alien wonder kindles my

boyish fascination with the bizarre. For

real enthusiasts, obscurities are included

in a special section in the back.

Anyone seeking to expand their

newfound arachnological obsession

would do well to pair this book with

A Guide to Spiders of Australia by

Framenau et al., which gives a more

scientific family-by-family treatment of

Australian spiders.

So catch the fever: spiders are

everywhere, and this is the perfect book

to get to know them more intimately.

DR OWEN SEEMAN is the Collection Manager

for Arachnida at the Queensland Museum. He

is also an editor for the journal Zootaxa. Owen’s

main research area is the taxonomy of mites that

live with insects and plants.

Whyte R & Anderson G. 2017. A Field Guide to

Spiders of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.

Paperback, 464 pages RRP: $49.95

Not an ant but the northern

green tree ant mimic spider

(Myrmarachne smaragdina).

Photo: Robert Whyte

My favourite:
a freakishly
alien-looking
undescribed
Celaenia species
found in coastal
forests of Qld and
NSW. Photo:
Greg Anderson

The vivid elephant-face peacock spider

(Maratus elephans). Photo: Jürgen Otto,

http://www.facebook.com/peacockspider

Sea-green northern jumping

spider (Cosmophasis thalassina).

Photo: Robert Whyte

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