Genus Maratus Karsch, 1878

Maratus Karsch, 1878: 27 . Type species designated by monotypy: Maratus amabilis Karsch, 1878, in Bonnet, 1957: 2713.

The endemic Australian Jumping spider genus Maratus belongs to the Saitis clade together with the salticid genera Saitis, Jotus, Prostheclina, Hypoblemum, ‘Lycidas’, Maileus, Barraina and possibly Margaromma (Zhang & Maddison, 2015) . Zhang and Maddison (2015) suggested merging the genera of this clade into Saitis . To explore this notion further it may be worthwhile to take a closer look into the ultrastructure of the embolic disc and the embolus which appear to have a lot of hidden characters not visible with a normal microscope (Figs 1, 7, 11, 15); however this paper does not aim to explore the monophyly of these genera, rather it is to describe a number of new species of the endemic Australian Peacock spider genus Maratus found in the Queensland Museum Collection, obtained on Bush Blitz expeditions and elsewhere.

Diagnosis. Members of the genus Maratus share with other genera of the Saitis clade a relatively large male palpal bulb with a retrolateral sperm duct loop (RSDL), a large retrobasal tegular lobe (TL), a finger-like retrolateral tibial apophysis (RTA), an anticlockwise coiled embolus (E) and a lamella on the tegular shoulder (LTS) of the male palp (Zhang & Maddison, 2015).

Maratus can be separated from other Saitis clade genera by males having an opisthosomal plate (often with lateral wings, flaps or a wide lateral fringe) covered with a dense layer of colourful iridescent setae (Otto & Hill, 2012a), elevated to display to the female during courtship. Lateral ornamentation in the species here can be a minimal edge (Figs 8 E) as in M. anomalus, M. julianneae; a larger flap which nearly always remains folded around the opisthosoma (Fig. 12 B) as in M. eliasi; or a big flap running along the whole side of the opisthosoma (Fig. 16 E), as in M. pavonis var. nornalup, M. volans and M. speciosus . Some Maratus species have inflatable spinnerets which are used in the courtship dance [described in detail in Otto & Hill, 2012b] and shown here in (Figs 12 A, 13A) in the cases of M. eliasi and M. ottoi .