‘Massive’ funnel-web spiders found in record numbers triggering Christmas warning

‘Massive’ funnel-web plague: Record numbers of the deadly spiders the size of iPhones are being found – and even the experts are scared by the size

  • About 20 funnel-web spiders have been handed to the Australian Reptile Park 
  • Experts are warning people to be extra careful of the spiders through summer 
  • Spiders are the most dangerous in the world  

A record number of ‘massive’ funnel-web spiders have been handed in to the Australian Reptile Park near Sydney prompting experts to issue a warning for Christmas holidays.  

About 20 of the spiders had been handed into the park over the last week and they were mostly males with leg spans of up to 10 centimetres.

‘They’re even scaring me and I have to work with them,’ Dan Rumsay from the Australian Reptile Park told the ABC.

A record number of ‘massive’ funnel-web spiders have been handed in to the Australian Reptile Park near Sydney prompting experts to issue a warning for Christmas holidays 

The park is the only place in Australia where the venom from the spiders is harvested to make anti-venom.

The wet weather is apparently not the reason for the record number of the spiders, the deadliest in the country, being found.

‘This time of year is the typical time males mature, and once they mature they actually stop feeding and they just spend all of their time searching for females,’ Victoria Museum senior curator of entomology Ken Walker told the publication.

Mr Walker also told a story of a young boy he met last year who was bitten after ‘putting on his Harry Potter costume to go to a dress-up party and a spider was actually hiding in the clothes basket… so make sure you check those things.’

Although there has not been a recorded fatality from a funnel-web bite for over 35 years, experts are warning people to be vigilant through the summer. 

Although there has not been a recorded fatality from a funnel-web bite for over 35 years, experts are warning people to be vigilant through the summer 

Although there has not been a recorded fatality from a funnel-web bite for over 35 years, experts are warning people to be vigilant through the summer 

Australian funnel-web spiders 

First aid treatment for a bite includes an immobilsation bandage and splint

The spiders are the most deadly found in the country

The range of the spiders is the eastern and southern states 

WA, the NT, and Tasmania are the only states were they are not found 

They are commonly found making their burrows under rocks  

There has not been a recorded fatality for over 35 years 

Anti-venom treated patients are discharged from hospital after a few days  

 

 

 

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