It's really happening

The book is now at the publishers and will be out sometime around the middle of the year. It is 464 pages with over 1350 colour photos of spiders, photos of many species never before published. All Australian spider families are represented. There is a detailed index and handy colour coding for the major families. The contents has colour-coded thumbnail images with short cuts to celebrity spider pages. Jürgen Otto provided many amazing images, allowing us to compile the most extensive gallery of Peacock Spiders ever seen, with 55 species. It is jam packed with images of the most-often encountered, most important, most amazing and most beautiful spider species. The emphasis is on being a practical field guide for those interested in nature to easily narrow down the identification a spiders they see or photograph.

Most of the photos in the book are by the authors with over 400 each but another 500 or so were provided by enthusiastic photographers. Key contributors were Iain Macaulay, Jürgen Otto, Adam Parsons, Mark Newton, Nick Monaghan, Nick Fisher, Ed Nieuwenhuys, Robert Raven, Laurence Sanders and Malcolm Tattersall.

Others in alphabetical order include Arthur Anker, Sandra Ashby, Myrella Bakker, Farhan Bokhari, Michael Brenek, Teale Britstra, Sabine Carter, Katarina Christenson, Jonathan Coddington, David Court, Sarah Crews, Mark Crocker, Ellie Downing, Judy Dunlop, Wendy Eiby, Duncan Fraser, Volker Framenau, Sergio Grez, Simon Grove, Jürgen Haider, Kerri-Lee Harris, Marshall Hedin, Alan Henderson, Gustavo Hormiga, Jean and Fred Hort, Anne Jones, Rudy Joque, Bronwyn King, Beth Kinsey, Ron Kinsey, David Knowles, Allan Lance, Richard Louvigny, Adam Maund, Mike McCoy, Bryce McQuillan, Steve and Alison Pearson, Frank Pierce, Nick Porch, Charlie Price, Mike Rix, Helen Smith, Joe Stiles, Angus Veitch, Nick Volpe, Murray Wellington, Paul Whitington, David Wilson and Steve Woodham.

Altogether more than 60 photographers contributed. Thanks to all contributors for their generosity and excellent images.

This is the Peacock Spider which started it all for Jürgen Otto. He named It for its discoverer Stuart Harris who is featured in a documentary telling the story.