Spiderweb

So Sweet !

Hah, it doesn't help with mine!! Sweet dreams then... ; )

Spider research helps with my arachnophobia...it's a sort of therapy...LOL

Well that was kind of fun. I love to learn new things and being a computer professor I have quick internet searching skills. I learned a ton just now about Australian spiders in general. Another possibility could be a Shield spider which is a form of huntsman that uses silk, leaves and grass to build a hole.

Seems like it could be a number of things. Most have females that rarely leave the holes (sometimes for years even). It is the males that move around looking for a mate. So, you might not see anything anytime soon.

Happy identifying. I have to get some sleep now since it is the wee hours here.

Wow, thanks Apple, you are very thorough! My husband did wave a stick in the entrance to the tunnels hoping to entice the spiders out, but whatever they were, they weren't interested.

This is a relative found in Queensland that makes its holes above the ground in trees....Hadronyche formidabilis

Based on the research I have done, it could also be a mouse spider. But, it seems the most likely culprit is a black house spider which makes a hole similar to that of the funnel web spider but always above the ground...

Here is one more resource I found....

http://www.queenslandarmchairguide.com/s...

Don't worry, it's not a Sydney funnel-web! We're in Queensland. We're quite familiar with Sydney funnel-webs though, we used to find them around our house in the northern suburbs of Sydney. We would take them to our local reptile park where they had a venom milking program.

Be careful, if it is a Sydney funnel web spider it is very dangerous.

See the following resource:

http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Environment...

Here's a great resource on the trapdoor spider vs. the funnel web spider (it could be a trapdoor as well...)

http://australianmuseum.net.au/Spiders-i...

Quote from the article: "The Sydney Funnel-web Spider
Signs

Funnel-web burrows are distinguished from other holes in the ground by the presence of a series of irregular silk 'trip-lines' radiating out from the entrance. Holes are normally found in moist, shaded areas like rockeries, dense shrubs, logs and leaf litter. A small, neat hole lined with a collar of silk which does not extend more than a centimetre from the rim could belong to a trapdoor spider (the common Brown Trapdoor Spider does not build a 'door' for its burrow). Other possible hole owners include mouse spiders, wolf spiders or insects (most commonly cicadas or ants)."

funnel web spiders will do this although their webs are usually wider and the whole is in the center of a wide flat web.

This actually looks like the hole of a tarantula or wolf spider.

Hey Mike, I'm not sure... we certainly saw funnelwebs in Sydney (usually at the bottom of the pool) but haven't seen any here in Queensland.

Funnel web springs to mind...do you get them up your way?