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Project Noah Nature School
Redback spiders are quite common in Australia. They tend to hide onder rocks and are slow moving, relying on their bright red markings to warn off predators. They are poisonous, the female more so due to her size... this one was about the size of a large pea, that little guy next to her is the male, I think the female eats him after they have mated... but, as you can see in this photo, there are new laid eggs in the cuckoon so maybe this is a myth. They do have fangs.. and it would seem to me, that they do not always pump venom, maybe it is seasonal, however, the few bites that I have had... and most people in Australia probably do get the odd bite in their lifetimes.. have simply shown as two small black dots on my legs. The ends of the fangs break off.. I dig em out with a pin in case they go septic. They are capable of living in extreme conditions too, surviving -10 winters and then... as in this extraordinary situation.. +50 or 60... that Tin they are living on was too hot to pick up, which is why I took the photo. In Australia, Redbacks are renown for epitomising the dangers of spiders, probably because they are common and Red. Australia has much more dangerous spiders, like the 'mouse spider' or the 'Funnelweb' but still, these little guys ... a member of the 'Black widow' family.. steal all the limelight. There is also a kind of 'wasp/fly' thing... which is very territorial, similar in colour but has two bright yellow antenae ... it appears to me, that this insect actually lives off Redbacks.. I've seen one carrying a dead Redback for about 2m up a wall! ... it even hunts them out.. flying right into a Redback's webbed hole to drag one out!
Poisons are the biggest danger to all our insect and arachnid fauna.. I worry about the 'nano spray' technology which stays as micro dropplets in our atmosphere.. common houshold sprays.. highly toxic to everything! Please don't buy them. If you must use an insecticide.. pyrethrin surface sprays are at least a natural formular (from Pyrethrin daisies.. yep.. just Daisies) .. and, they are the cheapest ones on the shelves. Thanks. ~AB
Spotted on Mar 3, 2009
Submitted on Mar 3, 2013
3 Comments
Welcome to Project Noah, AndyM.Beattie.
I have moved this spotting to the Arthropods category.
You can put this picture in the 2nd place and adding the spider's photograph only (without those text) as the first picture to highlight the wildlife.
Hello, I believe that this is an Australian redback spider- latrodectus hasselti -( caution if you did not know this is a venomous spider beware).the larger is spider is a female and the smaller is the male.
Hi, Andy. While I totally subscribe to your philosophy about leaving them in peace, I think your spotting image should be cropped a little to simply show the spiders and not the text. Thank you for your understanding. :-)