Yeah Australia has a couple of nasty spiders. There is the funnel web spider found in the eastern states. Males are about 3 inches long and females are bigger. They are black and hairy.
The females live underground in a burrow and the males wander around. If you stomp on the ground the spiders come out and attack whatever is out there. The males are usually the ones that bite people because they crawl into bags or onto picnic blankets. They are highly venomous and if you get bitten and don't get emergency treatment at a hospital, you can die.
They sometimes fall into swimming pools and can live on the bottom for more than a week. This is due to the hairs over their body, which trap air next to their skin and allow them to breath underwater. People sometimes get bitten when they scoop the spider out of the pool.
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The redback spider is found right around the country and have made it to Japan where it is an introduced pest. They have a small round fat body and are black all over except on the back where they have a red stripe. On some specimens they have red lines on their bellies but not always. On rare occasions some have a few small white dots on their belly with the red lines.
It is highly venomous but they are small shy spiders. The females have a web and spend their entire lives in a little corner away from disturbances. The male spiders wander around looking for females to breed with but very few people get bitten by redbacks and I don't think anyone has died from a redback spider bite in many years.
I actually had a female redback living in my bedroom as a kid. She spent her life in the corner between my bed and the wall and never caused any problems. I used to give her flies I caught. She had an egg sack and produced a bunch of babies that all disappeared except for two of them that set up home in her old nest.
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The main spider I freak out over is the white tail spider. They are a similar shape to the Nephila pilipes you posted above but are black all over and have a white dot or dash on the end of their tail. They are found around the country and have flesh eating bacteria (Mycobacteria, same Genus that causes TB and leprosy) on their fangs. When you get bitten they inject venom, which is mild and causes a red lump where the bite is. The lump gets itchy and when you rub it you spread the bacteria around the wound. Over the next few weeks the tissue around the bites starts to rot away as the bacteria eat it. If you don't get rid of the infection, it can cause you to lose limbs or kill you.
White tail spiders wander everywhere and don't set up a web or nest. They are fast moving spiders and will crawl over people at night and are regularly found in beds or clothing. Males and females are as bad as each other and I kill any I see on sight. I have no hesitation at all when it comes to killing this particular spider and I will tear a room apart to kill one and retrieve the body if I see one in the house. I never assume these spiders are dead unless I have squashed them into oblivion because they have hard bodies and play dead really well.
I got bitten by one of these spiders about 10 years ago. I woke up in the morning and had 5 or 6 red marks on my fingers. They were fine for a few days and then got itchy. I rubbed them and a week later I had ulcers where the red lumps used to be. A few weeks later the doctor said I needed anti-biotics. I said I didn't want anti-biotics because the last lot screwed up my digestive system. I was given a week and then I was going on anti-biotics regardless of it I wanted them. This is how serious the doctors take this spider, they will force you into hospital and force anti-biotics into you if you get bitten by this spider and develop ulcers. I looked for alternative treatments and tried raw honey. I rubbed it into the wounds and covered them in bandages. I washed and reapplied the honey twice a day for a week and then went back to the doctor expecting to end up on anti-biotics but the doctor said the infection had cleared up and the honey saved my fingers.
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We have lots of other spiders here but most are harmless. There is a bird eating spider in Queensland and it is pretty big. They are similar to tarantulas but aren't commonly seen around suburbia.
We get wolf spiders (huntsman spiders) all around the country and they are about the size of your hand. They are light brown and hairy and just wander around the walls and ceilings at night. You can be sitting down and this big brown hairy thing just starts crawling up the wall and everyone freaks out. They are pretty quick and have venom but you can usually scoop them up in a bucket and take them outside.
They have tough bodies and if you upset them they rear up and you can see the venom dripping off their fangs.
We get Xmas spiders down here in the south west of Western Australia. They only appear around Xmas, hence their name. They are small and really brightly coloured, but are only found in undisturbed bushland.
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The following link has a list of venomous spiders found in Australia.
***Warning*** people afraid of creepy crawlies might get scared.
Identify Venomous or Dangerous Spiders - Spider Identification Chart - sydney funnel-web spider - white tail spider - red-back spiders and many more
www.termite.com.au