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Timbo

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We had a spot of fun after dinner the other night, as we were cleaning up, my son states that there is a large spider by the front door. We go to investigate and find one of these;

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/funnel-web-spiders-group/
Sorry to ruin your night buddy, when you're just looking for a spot of rumpy pumpy, but you're not going though my house. Squish...

It is their breeding season hence why he was out and about, but as they have been known to bite through gumboots and are one of the deadliest spiders in existence, he was not staying alive.
 
Ugly little bastard. But then, I should talk.

5EF265C7-7CEC-4678-AB00-57F6DC5AE7DA.png
 
We leave these guys alone in the house or move them outside if there are no insects for them to catch inside.

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/huntsman-spiders/
They look far more scarier than they are, they're generally friendly spiders who'll stay out of your way if you stay out of theirs. Easy to catch with a tumbler and a sheet of paper when they're sitting still on your wall.

And apparently I should've captured our funnelweb visitor and dropped him off at a venom milking centre to help produce antvenom. Bugger that, I'm not putting my hands anywhere near one of them whilst it's alive.

The other trick funnelwebs do here is fall into your pool, get sucked into the filter and pretend to be dead at the bottom of it. Be careful, they've been known to survive 48 hours under water with air bubbles trapped to their body hair.

You Aussies do have an extraordinary number of lethal species don't you Tim - spiders, snails, snakes, jellyfish, cassowaries, salties......


Cheers?

RR

Yeah BD, we do have our fair share, including the platypus

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/mammals/platypus/
Also the sea snakes here put our land snakes to shame on the venom front. Many times more deadly, them plus Blue Ring Octopus and sea snails are one of the reasons I don't swim in the sea here much.

Dunno why Aus is such a haven for such creatures, supposedly evolution. The funnelweb evolved to be a very effective invertebrate hunter who's venom just happens to have a majorly deadly effect on primates too, of which, there are no native ones in my country. Besides which, what's a spider going to do with a dead primate, eat it?
 
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