So I popped out last night to switch on the tumble drier. It's been a bit rainy. It was quite late. I was barefoot. As I wandered, tired, out of my back door round to my laundry area, the flourescent light flickered into life. What I spotted near my feet brought me up short.
Within a few inches of my bare toes, locomoting along, was a spider. Maybe three to four centimetres in body length, with a relatively small abdomen, arched shiny carapace and the characteristic slow lope of a mygalomorph. Under the flourescent light, it glimmered black. When approached, it reared up aggressively. The stance and the leg configuration looked just like the picture I've wanted as a tattoo for, well... ages. It adorned the front page of my first ever blog, back in 2000.
Ohshit I nearly stood on a Sydney Funnelweb.
Now, I'm a bit of a spider nerd, so instead of engaging my mate WeezMGK's "Shit Pants And Run" protocol, I instead grabbed the nearest plastic food container, which I clapped over the spider, and ran off to find a lid. Or something else sturdy to slide under the container.
I opted against thin card, since funnelweb fangs can penetrate quite deeply, and instead grabbed a Wacom Graphire graphics tablet, which I now recommend as spider-catching equipment as well as an accurate Human Interface Device.
Anyway, I got it inside and went hunting for my spider reference books. I found nothing, so I did what any responsible internet user does. I tweeted that I had a funnelweb and "hey, what am I meant to do with it"? I was aware Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne collected them, and I had an inkling that maybe the Australian Museum or Taronga Zoo acted as a collection point. While Twitter and Facebook sought the info for me, I went back to my spider and examined him a bit more closely.
He looked black and shiny.
He it was, clearly a wandering male looking for a bit of spider lovin'. The small abdomen gave that away. I looked for the distinctive spurs on the forelegs that I remembered as a taxonomic giveaway for the Sydney Funnelweb. This guy certainly had prominent spurs on his forelegs. His palps (the mating organs like short 'arms' either side of the large fangs) were maybe a bit larger than I recalled from diagrams of
Atrax robustus. Do they enlarge in the mating season? I wasn't sure and I couldn't find my books, also the internet was being sterlingly unhelpful in terms of decent anatomical descriptions. His chelicerae (fang bases) were large. I retested the aggressive stance I'd seen earlier by judicious application of a kebab skewer left over from christmas festivities. Yep, definite aggressive rearing up, in fact a downright scary snap into attack position. Again, and a bite on the kebab stick, which I could clearly feel vibrate through the wood. I don't mind saying I found it quite threatening, me a full-grown human primate being intimidated by a two-inch arachnid. The fangs that were revealed were definitely big, sharp and primed for action.
In gross anatomical terms, I felt I had a match. I wasn't 100%, but it was late.
I found some guidance with the help of some Twitterfriends that my best bet was the Australian Reptile Park, and that I should container him up with some damp tissue paper to keep his air moist, punching a hole or two into the lid for circulation. It was late, I went to bed, happy that I'd finally met
Atrax robustus in the flesh.
The next morning I called the reptile park to see what the procedure was. I'd containered him correctly, and I could drop him off at the park, or at a number of drop-off points in Sydney. They were also really enthusiastic to get more specimens because demand for antivenom is very high. Satisfied, I went to see if my charge was still happy, healthy and threatening my imminent death.
In daylight, he looked kinda brown.
Very brown, in fact. Not the shiny black you expect from a funnelweb. Not the black colour I'd seen last night under flourescent tubes in my kitchen. Hmmm.
I re-checked the internets, and found a post from
the Australian museum on the Funnelweb.
Ah.
Seems I misremembered the location of the leg spurs.
A. robustus has spurs on its second pair of legs. My little friend had two spurs on each of his forelegs.
I didn't have a Sydney Funnelweb, clearly.
So, what did I have? Well, I trawled a bit more on the Australian Museum site and found
a thread talking about identification of funnel webs. This was more like it. This led me in turn to identify my spider as a
Sydney Brown Trapdoor Spider,
Misgolas rapax, with the distinctive "boxing glove" palps and twin spurs on the foreleg.
Not particularly deadly, but in terms of gross morphology, very similar to
A. robustus. To a colourblind oaf under flourescent lighting, that is. In my defence, these are often mistaken. They really are very similar and tricky little buggers to handle if you're unsure which species they are and want to avoid bites. And even if you're looking at the non-deadly species, you'd still end up, if bitten, with what Bill Bryson delightfully termed "a distinct disinclination to boogie".
So, protip to Sydneysiders in this wandering spider season: Don't count your chickens until you've seen them under natural lighting, and don't misremember the position of the spurs on the forelegs. But above all, don't employ the "Shit Pants And Run" protocol, or the SMFTB (stomp motherfucker to bits) protocol. And don't spray him with the nearest can of something deadly. If he
is a funnelweb, he's wanted for lifesaving antivenom production, and if he's not, you can still have an exciting encounter with a fascinating arthropod
and a fun taxonomic adventure identifying his exact species with the help of the internets.
As a closing note, we went to the
Australian Reptile Park today, happy to hand over $50 entry fee to a park that produces so much valuable antivenom, in a process which I might post on later (it's broadly related to vaccine production). I also bought a copy of Bert Brunet's "Spiderwatch" to replace my missing literature (also by Brunet), so I can avoid further misidentification adventures. As a bonus, I saw a galapagos tortoise, an echidna, some wombats, some real funnelwebs, a big fuckin' crocodile and a collection of some of the world's most deadly snakes. Recommended, for bio-nerds who don't mind a slightly superficial treatment of the subject in exchange for a relaxing afternoon in Sydney bushland.
We didn't take my Trapdoor Friend, as I released him down at the back of the garden, taking care to distract the dog and cat so he'd have a safe getaway. Hopefully he found a lady friend. That's what he wanted, after all. Even if she'd most likely eat him, he'd have died doing what he loved*.
*yes, I'm anthropomorphising. It's for effect, you pedants!