We have something very similar called a black widow that's more or less the same thing with slightly different markings, and my skin literally crawls every time I find one in our yard. Lately we've been getting these brutally hot summers every four years or so and that brings on a black widow invasion. Truly incredible how strong their webs are. If you accidentally put your hand in one you know straight off exactly what it is before you even see the spider. Yikes!!!
Yeah, redbacks are members of the widow family, and the most common spider that bites people in Australia, because it likes to hang out where we live.
They're not really deadly to humans, but cause a lot of pain... apparently they can kill children and pets, but I've never known of a case of this actually happening.
The main nuisance I have is that they like to hang out where I store the dog toys, so always need to be careful before I grab one as we go on walks.
I had a close call one time. There was this web emanating from the handle on my garage door and a little spider in the middle I had never seen before. But I knew we only had two types of venomous spiders, and out of those two the widow is the only deadly one. And this was obviously neither.
Curious, I strummed the web a little to get the spider to turn so I could see it better. Instantly upon feeling the web I knew exactly what it was. Sure enough, I looked under the garage door handle and there was a FAT black widow up under there. Turns out the little spider in the middle was a male black widow, which apparently looks nothing like the female and isn't really venomous. So yea, I won't be making that mistake again...
Yeah, not a huge spider but poisonous. Would've caused some problems for my 40Kg dog if he'd been bitten!
We have something very similar called a black widow that's more or less the same thing with slightly different markings, and my skin literally crawls every time I find one in our yard. Lately we've been getting these brutally hot summers every four years or so and that brings on a black widow invasion. Truly incredible how strong their webs are. If you accidentally put your hand in one you know straight off exactly what it is before you even see the spider. Yikes!!!
Yeah, redbacks are members of the widow family, and the most common spider that bites people in Australia, because it likes to hang out where we live.
They're not really deadly to humans, but cause a lot of pain... apparently they can kill children and pets, but I've never known of a case of this actually happening.
The main nuisance I have is that they like to hang out where I store the dog toys, so always need to be careful before I grab one as we go on walks.
I had a close call one time. There was this web emanating from the handle on my garage door and a little spider in the middle I had never seen before. But I knew we only had two types of venomous spiders, and out of those two the widow is the only deadly one. And this was obviously neither.
Curious, I strummed the web a little to get the spider to turn so I could see it better. Instantly upon feeling the web I knew exactly what it was. Sure enough, I looked under the garage door handle and there was a FAT black widow up under there. Turns out the little spider in the middle was a male black widow, which apparently looks nothing like the female and isn't really venomous. So yea, I won't be making that mistake again...
I did! There are still scorch marks on the garage door! LMAO
Little bugger had barricaded itself to where I couldn't smash it. Let's just say it involved an aerosol can and a lighter...