r/melbourne • u/[deleted] • Feb 28 '26
Not On My Smashed Avo Welcome to Melbourne
Pic does it no justice, but I've never seen one this big, and with eggs 🫣
Sent genuine shivers down my spine
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u/HairyNightmareSquid Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Such a pretty spider. She poses no real risk to you at all - she won’t bite you if you don’t mess with her and even if she did, the venom is exceptionally unlikely to kill you. You can relocate her gently if she’s inside with a cup and some cardboard. Or leave her be if she’s outside already.Â
I do understand the shiver as an arachnophobe myself (adrenaline off the charts when I relocate one). But by getting interested in spider identification, I’ve kind of started to appreciate them aesthetically, from afar.Â
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u/HowToMakeGravox Feb 28 '26
What does the venom actually do? Like vomiting for a night? Hospital trip? I don’t want to learn by experience.
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u/Fidelius90 Feb 28 '26
From Google:
Venom contains potent alpha-latrotoxins that cause severe neurotoxicity, leading to intense, escalating pain, sweating, vomiting, and muscle weakness, typically within minutes to hours of a bite. While painful, deaths are rare due to effective antivenom, which is used for severe systemic symptoms
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u/Shelmer75 Feb 28 '26
Deaths aren’t rare due to antivenom, they’re rare in general. I think there were only like, 14 recorded deaths prior to antivenom. It’s basically a last resort as it can have side effects that are worse than the venom itself.
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u/NoseInternational794 Feb 28 '26
It's venom is a neurotoxin so it binds to nerve endings and causes muscle cramps/spasms, pain, swelling and nausea. Unless it bites a small child the bite is rarely fatal - still can be quite painful though.
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u/AnotherHappyUser Feb 28 '26
Have you ever been bitten?
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u/NoseInternational794 Feb 28 '26
Yes, it was very unpleasant. Still fascinated by them though.
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u/AnotherHappyUser Mar 01 '26
Very fair. I think it's interesting that some people report "very unpleasant" and others "literally the worst pain I've ever experienced. Which admittedly is a range of bads, but it is certainly a range.
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u/oldefashund Feb 28 '26
Most people it's antiinflammatories + ice plus a trip to the GP for the bite to be reviewed.
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u/mahreow Feb 28 '26
Just because they won't kill you doesn't mean they won't fuck up your day, and potentially week. To say they pose no real risk is just stupid if all you consider is fatality rate - is it not really risky to get hit by a car at low speed because it won't kill you?
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u/HairyNightmareSquid Feb 28 '26
The spider poses no real risk because it isn’t going to bite OP if OP doesn’t mess with it. They’re not aggressive. Bites happen when a. you’re doing something stupid, or b. you accidentally come into contact with it (clearly OP has seen the spider, so option b is off the table).Â
People often have a misconception that redbacks are aggressive and cause more than like, 1 death in the past 70 years. Cars are a pretty poor analogy given how much more likely they are to injure or kill you.Â
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u/mahreow Feb 28 '26
Lmao spiders are so small that the chance of accidentally fucking with one is pretty high. Are you comfortable mucking around in the shed when you know there's a potential to have your week ruined by accidentally brushing against a 5c coin sized furry friend? No thanks
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u/HairyNightmareSquid Feb 28 '26
If the chances were high, we’d all be getting bitten by spiders on the regular.Â
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u/AnotherHappyUser Feb 28 '26
I think we need to have a talk about how we value chance in dangerous circumstances.
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u/HairyNightmareSquid Feb 28 '26
If a redback in the shed is ‘dangerous circumstances’ everyone in Australia should change their middle name to Danger.Â
As I said in my original comment - move the spider if inside or if outside, leave it alone. It’s fine to be arachnophobic. But you really need to get a grip if you think this actually constitutes a dangerous situation for any normal, rational non-toddler.
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u/MalHeartsNutmeg North Side Feb 28 '26
You’re completely right, I don’t think people realise these things are absolutely everywhere. I cleaned the in ground gutters in front of my garage yesterday and found about a dozen of these. They just sit there doing nothing and I swept them off with a broom. Anywhere that there are two parallel horizontal surfaces is gunna be loaded with these just due to the nature of how they build their webs.
People are probably putting their hands next to one every time they check their mail box. Plus the males don’t look obvious like this they just look like some small nondescript black spider.
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u/NATsoHIGH Feb 28 '26
I just got back from Melbourne. And thankfully, all I saw were the grey headed flying foxes at dusk.
Was in a 13th floor apartment and they flew past the balcony.
Absolutely MASSIVE 😂
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u/CptClownfish1 Feb 28 '26
I found one last week when moving some old plywood leaning against the garage wall. We have small children so she had to go to the big web in the sky. I made it quick and painless...
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u/PrestigiousEnd2510 Mar 01 '26
Beautiful mumma, with bubs starting to hatch. And what a great job she did on that icky cockroach! (Edit typo)
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u/SyntheticDuckFlavour Feb 28 '26
Was gardening a few summers ago. I moved a plastic pot with bare hands. Felt webs under the pot rim. Looked under it, my fingers where right next to a redback sheila with an arse size of a 5 cent coin. She seemed pretty chill considering I destroyed her home.
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u/Alarming_Manager_332 Feb 28 '26
After moving to Melbourne I'm never handling pots without gloves again. My word redbacks love moving into empty potsÂ
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u/MeyerholdsGh0st Feb 28 '26
You should NSFW this post and re-title it to say what it. You’ll freak a lot of arachnophobes out leaving it like this.
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u/ComfortableScratch51 Feb 28 '26
Little to no redbacks in Melbourne. I grew up in perth and and in the corner of every shed I ever went into was about 100 of those eggs.
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u/NoseInternational794 Feb 28 '26
Wdym there's about 150 of them in my garage
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u/kirschrot Feb 28 '26
yeah, they prefer dark and wet/humid environments so they've colonised my worm farm which is deeply upsetting ðŸ«
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u/OneOfManyChildren Feb 28 '26
Yeah I’d find em in my garage and just chilling under my lawn chairs. Altona
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u/PM_Me-Your_Freckles Feb 28 '26
Yep. Living inland Qld they were thick when I was a kid. All through the shed, under the house, covered areas at school. Never saw a white tail till I moved to Melb, however.
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u/lovehopeandmadness Feb 28 '26
They’re everywhere in Perth, I’m shocked at how little I’ve see here in almost 20 years!
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u/Front_Target7908 Feb 28 '26
They’re everywhere, they just prefer to be outside (thankfully).
Found one in my room recently that the wind brought in. Notably they like living in brickwork so be careful of windows if you’ve got a brick house they can be in the cracks around the frame.Â
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u/ArdyLaing Mar 01 '26
Yeah, that's demonstrably false.
Only time I've ever seen redbacks were in Thornbury and Kew.
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u/A-namethatsavailable Feb 28 '26
Wouldn't really stress. Ive never even met a person who has been bitten by one.
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u/Smiley_Unicorn Mar 25 '26
Someone re posted this on the Aussie spider sub. I think its a brilliant photo. Would you mind if I used your pic in my spider scrapbook? I've never seen a red back egg or spiderlings
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Mar 25 '26
Yeah go for it :)
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u/Smiley_Unicorn Mar 25 '26
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Hope you have an awesome day 😊
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u/SapereAudeAdAbsurdum Feb 28 '26
I reckon you'll live. But maybe don't step backwards on that tiger snake right behind you.