redbacks

[5teve]

Hi guys

Been talking to the guys at work about a few redbacks we keep getting around the house, they are insisting that they may look like redbacks but arent due to the size, researching i would be inclined to agree... but what else could they be?

i dont have pictures.. but the body length is around 20 - 23mm with the rear end being about the size of my finger end. (about 15mm - 18mm dia)

i will see if i can get a pick later if the one i disposed of is still around..

do you guys see any this big? this is about the 3rd or 4th of this size?

Thanks

Steve

[RonMcGr]

Hi guys

Been talking to the guys at work about a few redbacks we keep getting around the house, they are insisting that they may look like redbacks but arent due to the size, researching i would be inclined to agree... but what else could they be?

i dont have pictures.. but the body length is around 20 - 23mm with the rear end being about the size of my finger end. (about 15mm - 18mm dia)

i will see if i can get a pick later if the one i disposed of is still around..

do you guys see any this big? this is about the 3rd or 4th of this size?

Thanks

Steve

There are smaller black spiders that look like red-backs, without the red stripe.

Red-back Spiders always have filthy nests, full of grass and dead carcasses.

If you also have Daddy-long-leg spiders near by, they tend to be territorial and kill Red-backs. :D
Believe it or not the DLL is more poisonous but unable to bit us :cool:

Cheers,
Ron

[Redback]

Redbacks (female only) have a red dot on the back end as in my avatar, where abouts in the house are these spiders.

Baz.

[Jamo]

We get them that big here. Definitely redbacks!

Easier to stomp on when they're that size!:D (not that I'm into wanton killing of insects:angel:)

[5teve]

they generally live around the house under windowsills etc... have had one under the pool waterfall lip too...


yes its a messy web too..

they are black (or very dark brown) with a jaggedy edged red or orangy red patch on the rear running up the middle of it, as though someone has daubed it on roughly with a paintbrush.

im pretty sure its a redback, im just concerned by the size... they are too big for redbacks appraently!

we have plenty of black house spiders (or window spiders as they are known) which can bite but rarely so i leave them be as they are shy and hide most of the time. we have plenty of DLL's around too... which is why i think we only get a few redbacks and why they are this size... the DLL wont dare touch them :D

Thanks

Steve

[Lotz-A-Landies]

For spider identification the Australian Museum site is worth a look. Spiders - Australia's spider fauna (http://www.austmus.gov.au/spiders/diversity/fauna/index.htm)

Or First Aid from the Australian Venom Research Unit. AVRU - First Aid (http://www.avru.org/firstaid/firstaid_main.html)

For those with a medical bent one worth having loaded into the computer for First Aid purposes http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/policies/gl/2007/pdf/GL2007_006.pdf

Diana

[5teve]

thanks Diana i looked at those sites which is where it states about the size being 12mm ish.. 15 i could understand but near on twice that size.. seems a bit rare..

Jamo..

maybe its the WA breed of redbacks... as the mining companies are getting fat over here maybe the insects are doing the same :D we have a huge amount of mole crickets too which are only a recent discovery apparently... especially the ones we have...

i'll get a photo later if i can

Thanks guys

Steve

[sschmez]

There seem to be a few around here too ...
Here's my pet at work, she lives behind the ashtray outside (gotta be careful when I empty it)
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/9163/petredback001iv4.jpg

Not quite as big as your spider 5teve, but fairly big for what I usually see around here ... I've seen some quiet big ones like what you describe in my travels ... I always just thought they were redbacks anyway

Stevo

I've got some in my compost bin at home too...

We point them out to our German visitors, 'cos they love the excitement of actually seeing something they've seen on TV ..... then when they're in the way in the kitchen trying to be helpful, we send them out with some compost for the bin ... a couple of mnutes later you go out to find them trying to get it open with a big stick or throwing the compost at it from a distance .... great for laughs

[NFO 801]

My 'pet' redback got rather large and yeaterday I noticed it was alot smaller but with a large egg sack next to it. I decided in the interests of self preservation to commit arachnocide. Maybe your females all have a few buns in the oven, so-to-speak.

[Lotz-A-Landies]

thanks Diana i looked at those sites which is where it states about the size being 12mm ish.. 15 i could understand but near on twice that size.. seems a bit rare..

Jamo..

maybe its the WA breed of redbacks...

Thanks guys

Steve
Steve there is a close relative of the red back called the brown widow which inhabits the north of Australia and Indonesia etc. However I believe that it is a similar size the the regular redback.

Perhaps it is just that everything is bigger in Western Oz???

Diana

[cucinadio]

we just had our house here in Hervey bay sprayed for them !!l had never ever seen so many and so big in my life before now!!
little bugger where every where and the house is only 8 months old!!

NM they were to as you say coming down through the down lights !!some nights we would go in to check on the kids and find the buggers just hanging down over the top them bloody hell did we get the ****s then!!

cheers

[discowhite]

yep they get real big in QLD!
i have photos (ones on paper stuff) somewhere of one i found in an old EH holden that had an **** as big as a 5cent coin.
i found one this arvo under a pot in my front garden that would have gone 12mm, now she's about 20mm WIDE!!!:D

cheers phil

[gruntfuttock]

By the way. The daddy-long-legs CAN bite humans, and like the redback it can only do this if the skin is thin, like between the fingers, on the wrists, back of the hand. A redback cannot bite through the palm of the "average" working man as the skin is too thick. They (the DLL) are not posionous to man, I don't know about kids though.

[HangOver]

Hey Steve
We live not too far from you and we have had more redbacks this year than the past four years, dunno why.
We had them under the paver lip on the pool, garage, one or two in the house. All over really.

If it has a red back, KILL IT ! it's a red back.

Red-backs can cause an adult to be ill and could kill an old person or child.

As for DDL poison and tixoic to humans it's a myth:
Spider Myths: If it could only bite (http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/daddyvenom.html)
Pholcidae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae#Most_venomous.3F)

[5teve]

thanks guys..

the spidey has been cleaned up so no pictures :( never mind... will try and find another so that i can show how big they are! mind you it sounds im not the only one.. :D maybe we should inform the researchers that they are wrong!

Hangover...

we have only had 3 this year 4 in total in 18 months... but the place has DLL spiders everywhere as well as black house spiders (or window spiders) and i think they keep them down, we have a survival of the biggest i guess with the redbacks. never seen a huntsman either... and only ever had one bobtail lizard too... i'd like plenty more of those...

Sschmez

i guess the pet would make a good lunch for ours over here :D exactly what they look like just supersized...

maybe there is a business of selling DLL spiders to get rid of redbacks :)

Thanks for the info guys

Steve

[CraigE]

Could just be a common black house spider.

[cucinadio]

thanks guys..


[QUOTE]Hangover...
we have only had 3 this year 4 in total in 18 months...


christ really !! we bloody killed at least twenty a day before we got it sprayed??;) don't fret 5teve your lucky !!!

(to have little that is!! ;))

cheers

[incisor]

do you guys see any this big? this is about the 3rd or 4th of this size?

yep, and bigger

1980, in the pits beside the old kilns at the now non existent wilkinson day and grimes timber mill in caboolture i have seen them well in excess of 30mm. they sent some to the brisvegas museum to get them identified i believe as no one believed they got that big. apparently they do in the right spot ;)

[George130]

Friends property gets red backs that big. Not common in buit up areas.