On 5 December David Hill and Jurgen Otto published a detailed description and analysis of the courtship display of Maratus aquilus in Peckhamia 196.1 The male is capable of various modes of display, used for different purposes. The unilateral and bilateral semaphore displays as well as the elevated fan wave and active fan dance are the first stages of the display and are employed to get the attention of female and to promt her to come closer. Then the close fan dance follows whereby the female approaches and the male displays left or right sides of the fan to her, alternating between sides, and through a special window of the vertically raised legs he also displays to her a special iridescent ornament.
Maratus aquilus belongs to the vespa group and the other six species in this group share elements of the display. All seven species are distributed in a 200 km strip in the southwest of Western Australia, and all have been discovered in the last few years.