Sydney funnel-web spider
Atrax robustus
— Where the name comes from
Robustus is Latin and needs no translating: it is a squat, black, glossy animal with chelicerae able to pierce a fingernail. The English name, funnel-web spider, looks at the web — a silken funnel running down into a crevice, with lines strung at the entrance that report whatever passes. Sydney gives the place, and in this case the place is the news: it is one of the most dangerous spiders in the world and it lives in the gardens of a city of five million people.
— Facts
- Group
- Arachnids · Arachnida
- Order
- Spiders
- Habitat
- Damp shaded ground, in funnel burrows under stones and logs
- Range
- Within about 100 km of Sydney, Australia
- Size
- 1–5 cm of body
- Diet
- Insects, millipedes, snails, small vertebrates
- Lifespan
- Female up to 20 years, male 6–9 months
— Characteristics
- 01
The male is six times more toxic to humans than the female.
- 02
The venom is nearly harmless to dogs and cats, lethal to primates.
- 03
It survives long immersion: it is found in swimming pools, still alive.
— What sets it apart
Its venom kills us and not its predators, and that is an accident of evolution: the molecule responsible acts on the sodium channels of nerves in a way to which primates are extraordinarily sensitive, while mice, rabbits, dogs and cats neutralise it without great harm. It is a venom designed for insects that turned out, by chance, to suit us perfectly. An antivenom has existed since 1981, and since then nobody has died — before that there were thirteen recorded deaths. Producing the antivenom depends on people who catch the spiders alive and hand them to the laboratories.
