rainbow wrote:Pathetic. This is a proper African spider:
.

All show, no go. Baboon spiders have never killed a human being. They're just a big wimps. Explains why the photo is of someone holding this specimen in his bare hand.
The redbacks in my garden are quite small, beautiful ... and deadly.
They have not killed any humans since 1956 though, because their poison is slow acting and antivenins have been developed around that time. Their bite is still very painful, which is why you are unlikely to find a photo of anybody holding a live redback in their hand.
Then there's the funnelweb. Unlike the redback, it will actually go on the attack. The greatest number of people killed lived in Sydney, but again, nobody has suffered more than rather severe and prolonged pain since an antivenin has been developed.
I photographed this one in my garden a few years ago, but it could have been the relatively much less harmful mouse spider which looks much the same. One of my chooks swooped on it and gobbled it up. Chooks are immune to spider bites.
