The reason they are called Funnel Web Spiders is because of the way they weave their webs. They weave their webs like a funnel hole and then hide in the center of it for things to crawl in. We saw a lot of funnel webs at the Canberra Zoo. Here is a picture of what the web looks like. You can kind of see the spider lurking in the background. When I took this picture, I pressed the button to take it and the light popped up on the camera first instead of taking the picture and I screamed and just about peed my pants thinking that it was jumping out at me.
Here is the before and after shots of the one running on our wall one night. Sorry it's not very good. I posted another one from online so you can see what it looks like. This one was only about 2 1/2 inches long from leg to leg span. Not like the Golden Orb Weaver I posted about previously, which is about 12 inches when you include leg span.
This is a spider that lives on the ground and has to fight for it's food, therefore making it more deadly than a spider that catches all it's prey with a web.
Oh NO!!!I've always wanted to live in Australia but after these post about spiders...Maybe not so much anymore. I hate spiders!! Every time I see one I scream and call Philip to kill them. Even the little baby ones. I ran over a motorcycle in my parents 15 passenger van because a spider was crawling up my leg and I freaked out!
ReplyDeleteSpider, spider who found the spider. I wouldn't take the picture of the funnel spider it freaked me out too much. So Jeremy ended up taking the picture. Brave Jer. Good on ya, mate. he he he. Lianna, I'd probably have done the same thing. LOL
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