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Alexander Dudley | all galleries >> Australian Invertebrates >> Australian Spiders > Redback Spider, Lactrodectes mactans hasseltii
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30-MAR-2004 Alexander Dudley

Redback Spider, Lactrodectes mactans hasseltii

Blue Mountains National Park, NSW

The famous Redback spider is a cultural icon in Australia- but is it really Australian? My work has lead me to spend way too
much time wandering about in the bush looking in crevices, caves and hollow logs and once I get more than a few kilometres
from buildings or farms, I just don't find Redbacks. Hence I strongly suspect that they are an introduced spider, sort of like
a punk Black Widow. They have a potentially fatal bite and like a lot of spiders where the female is substantially larger than
the male, is inclined to eat her husband after mating..

This lovely female was on the back of the door of the Butcher's Creek Hut at Lake Burragorang.

FujiFilm FinePix S2 Pro ,Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro
1/125s f/27.0 at 59.0mm iso100, Metz 20BC4, Starblitz 160-slave full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Ian Morehouse14-Apr-2018 13:09
looks like mimic redback because it doesn't have the round black/brown body. I have seen a number of these around my garden recently plus the bigger round bodied ones. I have often wondered how these arrived in my garden because they were not here for about 10 years after we moved in.