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Funnel-Web Spider — printable fact sheet
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Funnel-Web Spider
Atrax robustus
Australia's funnel-webs, and above all the Sydney funnel-web, are among the very few spiders with venom that can reliably kill an adult human, and the reason is a biochemical accident. The key toxin, delta-hexatoxin, jams open the sodium channels in nerve cells, and it almost ce…
Did you know?
- Unlike most spiders, the male Funnel-Web Spider becomes more dangerous than the female due to the specific toxins present in his venom.
- A funnel-web that has fallen into a swimming pool can survive underwater for many hours by holding a bubble of air trapped in the hairs around its abdomen, so an apparently drowned spider may be entirely alive and capable of biting. Milking spiders for antivenom production depends on a steady supply of live males, and Australian venom programmes actively ask the public to catch and hand in the spiders they find. Because it is the wandering males that are lethal, the danger is strongly seasonal, peaking in summer and after rain. The burrow itself is silk-lined with trip-lines radiating from the entrance, and the spider judges prey entirely by the vibration of a foot touching one of those threads.
What I learned
Draw the funnel-web spider
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