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He has proven himself yet again to be Canberra's spider man. Perhaps he has an eye for it, but citizen scientist Stuart Harris has made his fourth peacock spider species discovery - this one while working in the vines at Mount Majura winery. The Belconnen native was instantly captured by the vibrantly coloured jumping spider. "I always carry a little plastic tube in my pocket, just in case another spider turns up," he said. "I was on my hands and knees probably pulling out weed around the bottom of a vine had a look and saw this hop, hop, hop, and there it was. This bright blue jumping spider." Four years since on from the discovery it has been officially named Saratus hesperus and described within the science journal Peckhamia. What stands this discovery apart from the three prior, and three he has co-discovered with other spider fans, was that this was the first of a new spider family or genus. "This little one for all intents and purposes is a peacock spider it is just when they did the dissections and had a look at the genitalia it's totally different to all the peacock spiders," Mr Harris said. "That anatomical difference is enough for the taxonmists Dr Otto and Dr Hill to give it its own genus." Mr Harris said this was the first Saratus found, the holotype, but over the past decade there had been a spike in discoveries with 52 peacock spider types found so he was hopeful the saratus wouldn't be a family of one for long. The tiny spider is just 4mm in size but with help from a macro photographic lens Mr Harris was able to look at its patterning - a feature that determined the second part of its name. "Hesperus is greek for the planet venus," he said. "Once I saw it had the yellow dot on the two-tone blue background. Venus is a very sulphuric planet and so has that connection with the yellow and it also has the yellow legs. So it seemed like a no-brainer." Mr Harris said his life has transformed by his passion for science and spider scouting and his three year quest for the first Maratus was the subject of a short documentary film of the same name released in 2015. He first discovered the Maratus harrisi in 2011 and went on to discover the Maratus calcitrans in 2012 on Black Mountain and Maratus elephans in 2013. Mr Harris was also credited with the co-discovery of three other peacock spiders in 2014 in Wangaratta , in 2015 at Mt Hotham and in 2016 in Bermagui. His work as a citizen science led him to take up work at Questacon and he devotes his annual leave to springtime searches for new peacock spider varieties. "When it is in your blood, and you have had this sort of success, when it has had this sort of impact on one's life you can't give it up," he said. "I save my money, my energy and my leave for spring period when they are most active. I am already making plans this year to year to look around the Grampian in Victoria."

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