Funnel Web Spiders

I’m usually pretty quick on the draw when someone uses “Spider Talk” to talk to me (scroll down a bit and you’ll see it on the right hand side). I missed someone while I was away from my computer. They asked a question about identifying a spider with short legs and red on its back. If that’s you, please try Spider Talking to me again, or leave a comment and I’ll answer it for everyone to see.

I hope that in the meantime, the spider you tried to describe hasn’t bitten you and that if you don’t come back to this site it’s not because you’re dead or very ill in hospital from spider bite.

Termite.com is actually the site that I got the funnel web spider first aid information from (obviously not verbatim - mine is more vivid). If you happen to see a creepy looking spider in your back yard and want to know whether you’re taking your life in your hands by poking it with a stick (even if you’re not, please don’t), then this chart is for you:

Printable version
Web version with more info

I personally like the web version much better as it has an animated image of the male funnel web spider that does a little jig!

The chart lists the spiders by whether they are:

• Deadly and Dangerous (this is where the funnel web spider is)
• Venomous - Poisonous - Painful Bite, and
• The “Low Risk” Spiders

Termites.com is actually a really good, very informative site about all sorts of creepy crawlies. These guys are apparently the ones who can eradicate the following vermin and nasties from your home:

• ants
• bedbugs
• bees
• birds
• borers
• cockroaches
• fleas
• rats and mice
• silverfish
• spiders
• termites (of course!), and
• wasps

As the whole world is now aware, Steve Irwin died yesterday when he was fatally pierced in the chest by a short-tail stingray while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland. Conservationist, unrepentant Aussie and absolute maniac, Steve Irwin and his daredevil spirit will be sorely missed.

He was one of only two men that funnel web spiders don’t mess with. The other is Jack Bauer.

Whoo Hoo! 100 people have visited this site. “So what?”, I know, but you have to celebrate the small things, right?

The Australian Museam Online has a great Fact Sheet on Funnel Web Spiders. It covers the Atrax and Hadronyche species of funnel webs. It has sections on their:

• habitat and distribution
• identification
• habits, mating and reproduction
• toxicity
• first aid
• control
• links, and
• references

My favourite quotes are:

“The males spend their entire short adulthood seeking as many receptive females to mate with as possible.”

“During mating, the male must restrain the female from striking him with her fangs using the spurs on his second legs…”

“Juvenile males will stay in their burrows until their final adult moult, after which they will become wanderers.”

I think these facts go to show just how much spiders and humans have in common.

Have a burning need to be immortalised in a really cool way? Having a comet or star named after you is so passe!

The Queensland Museum Foundation will name a species of spider after you if you can cough up the dosh - $5000 Australian.

Shoot for scientific immortality now!

• The process
• Inquiry form
• The science behind names

My friend is doing a talk on funnel web spiders tomorrow. He said it was OK to put his talk notes on this site:

He always does really well on his talks. Because he knows his topics so well, he doesn’t have to write lots of things on his talk notes.

Since my last move, I haven’t been able to find anything - funnel web spider photos included. Bugger! I’ll be visiting my fearless photographer friend for copies very shortly.

I was recently talking with my intrepid photographer friend, Doug Steley. We were making sure we both knew where the photos were etc for putting together this web site. He mentioned in passing (I mean while we were talking about other things, not “with his dying breath”) - and this is a direct quote here:

“I still wake with nightmares years afterwards.”

Nice. The full story of the funnel web spider photo shoots coming soon.

If you’re reading this, then the short answer is, no Fiona, you weren’t bitten by a funnel web spider. If you had just been bitten by a funnel web spider, you’d either be on your way to the hospital or you’d be dead or close to it, either way not in any condition to be trolling blogs. If you want the long answer, check out my “Was I bitten by a Funnel Web?” page.

Just added my About page. Be stunned and amazed as I link funnel web spiders to two leading spiritual figures of our times and change religion as we know it.

Hello hello! I’m in the early stages of building a shop for all things funnel web spider. Funnel web spiders are seriously cool - the world’s most aggressive, most toxic arachnids - and they look the part! Funnel webs are notoriously difficult to photograph:

• they’re very aggressive
• they can move very fast
• they scare the crap out of most photographers
• when they’re not scaring the crap out of photographers, they like to stay inside their little “socks” (their funnel-shaped webs they live in)

I’ll be releasing a range of funnel web spider gear featuring some of the best photos ever taken of these creepy fellas. You heard it hear first!

Funnel web spiders - they’re aggressive little bastards, totally lethal and they will eat you whole (ok, that last bit is an exaggeration).

What’s more, they really look the part. If they were people, they’d be mean nasty pirates, except their hook would be tipped with poison and their wooden leg would double as a lance. Actually, they’d either be pirates, or Jack Bauer. Or the evil love child of pirates and Jack Bauer. Go to this list of the top 100 facts about Jack Bauer, replace all mentions of Jack Bauer with funnel web spiders, and you’ll get my point.

I’m gradually putting together a shop for all things funnel web spider, and am documenting the process on this here blog.

Oh, and don’t be dissing funnel web spiders or the Flying Spaghetti Monster will have your arse (with his Noodly Appendage, and Jack Bauer) for messing with the pirate people. In fact, as far as you’re concerned, the New Holy Trinity is:

• Our Father, the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
• The Son, Jack Bauer, and
• The Holy Ghost, Funnel Web Spiders.

The year is 1981. You’ve been bitten by a funnel web spider. Your name is Gordon Wheatley and you’re about to become the first person on the planet to be treated with the still experimental funnel web spider anti-venom.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an excellent article on Gordon and the doctors who treated him on that fateful night:

…the bite detonated a storm inside his nervous system, one which sent his heart into overdrive, doubled his blood pressure, unleashed wavelets of violent, involuntary twitches over his arms, stood his body hair on end and caused his lungs to stiffen and well with yellow foam.

The title of this post comes from the article.