It certainly sounds like a nasty spider - is this the same as the
"Fiddleback Spider" (referring to the violin on it's back) that is found
(gulp!) over here? The grisly wounds sound like those claimed to be
caused by an Aussie spider the "White-tailed Spider" (the tip of it's
abdomnen is white, the rest is blackish) which I kill on sight. Even
before all the press hype about this spider, I used to squash them
whenever I found one - they're just one of those spiders which you sense
is *bad*. They're also hard to kill - you can drown them in
surface-strength sprays without any luck and even squashing them is
difficult (they make a crunchy sound when you succeed...) The biggest
one I've seen is only an inch or so long and they're one of the
wolf-spider group (I think).
I've also heard that the American Black (& Brown ?) Widow spiders have been
in Australia for some time. Scientists are now investigating the toxicity of
believed hybrids between it/them and our deadly Red-Backs...
| John Taylor [The Banshee] | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |