New species of deadly giant spider discovered: here’s where to avoid
The Australians have, of course, found a deadly venomous spider and named it ‘Big Boy’.
Scientists in Australia have discovered a ‘giant’ species of Sydney funnel-web spider, one of the world’s deadliest. Nicknamed ‘Big Boy’, the species was originally found by Kane Christensen, a spider enthusiast and ex-head of spiders at the Australian Reptile Park. in the early 2000s near Newcastle, 170 km north of Sydney.
The discovery was published by scientists from the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change in Germany, the Australian Museum in Sydney, and Flinders University in Adelaide. Their findings appeared in the journal BMC Ecology and Evolution on Monday.
“This particular spider is a lot larger, its venom glands are a lot larger and its fangs are a lot longer,” he said.
Where can you find the new species of spider?
While regular funnel-webs are around 5cm, Atrax christenseni, named after the man who found it, can get up to 9 centimetres (3.54 inches) long.
“I just helped them find the species and they rang me and said would they be able to name it after me? That’s just one of the biggest honours you could ever get,” Mr Christensen said.
Funnel-webs have been responsible for a total of 13 deaths although no human fatalities have occurred since the development of antivenom in the 1980s, according to the Australian Museum.
She said she found a funnel-web spider
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What would you do in this situation
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“Sometimes you might find them in a garage or in a bedroom or somewhere in the house where they might have wandered in during the night,” Christensen said of the new species. “I would not recommend touching them that’s for sure, they do give copious amounts of venom.”
The new species will not change how bites are treated, and the same anti-venom indeed works across the species.
At present, science is aware of three species belonging to the funnel-web family. The true Sydney funnel-web, the southern Sydney funnel-web, and now the largest of the three — the Newcastle funnel-web.
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