optical illusion – Alison Pearce Stevens https://apstevens.com Adventures in nature and science Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:09:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://i0.wp.com/apstevens.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cropped-site-icon.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 optical illusion – Alison Pearce Stevens https://apstevens.com 32 32 79253410 Dancing peacock spiders https://apstevens.com/dancing-peacock-spiders/ Wed, 01 Apr 2020 16:10:13 +0000 http://apstevens.com/?p=1949 A 22-year-old researcher in Australia just discovered 12 new species of spider, seven of which are colorful peacock spiders. Not only are peacock spiders beautiful (their name reflects their colorfully patterned abdomens), but they are also exceptional dancers. Males wave their legs, wave their abdomens, and put on quite a show when there’s a female in the area.

Did you know? The brilliant blue on these spider’s hind ends is created by teeny-tiny nanostructures on the scale-like hairs located there. source

Want to know more? Find out how peacock spiders’ colors create an optical illusion at National Geographic.

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