While some people might be comfortable with having a spider around the house, others have very real arachnophobia. And this fear is not unwarranted: Australia is home to the world’s most venomous types of spiders and some are found right in your backyard! Below are the most common types of spiders we treat in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens, Maitland and the Hunter Valley.
Black House Spider
The black house spider is venomous, but not considered very dangerous. A bite is very rare, but it can be excruciatingly painful, causing nausea, sweating and swelling.
Appearance and characteristics
The black house spider is usually 1-2cm in length and up to 3cm in leg length. It has a matt black body, dark brownish/black legs and greyish/black abdomen.
Lifecycle
After mating, the female black house spider stores her eggs in several silk sacks attached to the web. She stays with the eggs for a short period of time after they hatch in the springtime. Black house spiders usually live for 1-2 years.
Habitat
The black house spider is often found in doorways and corners of the home.
St. Andrews Cross Spider
This spider is often found stretched out in its web with its legs forming an X shape. Their large webs can be almost invisible and easy to walk into, but luckily apart from some local pain or swelling their bite isn’t poisonous.
Appearance and characteristics
Glossy black with yellow stripes and patterns on its legs and abdomen. The male reaches 3-4mm in body length, while the females are 10-16mm.
Lifecycle
After mating, the female stores 400 to 1,400 eggs in a thick green silk sac, blending in with the surrounding leaves.
Habitat
It usually lives in warmer areas, spinning its webs in trees and shrubs.
Garden Orb Spider
This is one of the most common types of spiders found along the east coast of Australia. Although its bite may cause local swelling or pain, the garden orb spider isn’t poisonous.
Appearance and characteristics
Garden orb spiders can range from tan to a brownish/black in colour, usually with darker legs. It has a large bulging abdomen, often patterned like a leaf with stripes or spots. They are around 1 to 2.5cm in body length and 1 to 3.5cm in leg length.
Lifecycle
After mating, the female garden orb will create a cocoon and stick it to foliage to house the eggs. Once the eggs hatch, they weave small silk strands and float away on them, in a process known as ballooning. The lifespan of a garden orb spider is about 12 months.
Habitat
Garden orb spiders weave sticky, round webs found on foliage in the yard or bushland.
Sydney Brown Trapdoor Spider
The trapdoor spider is often confused with the funnel web spider, as these type of spiders can look quite similar. However, the trapdoor spider is not poisonous.
Appearance and characteristics
Dark chocolate-brown colour with a hairy body and smooth legs. They are around 2 to 3.5cm in body length and 2 to 4cm in leg length.
Lifecycle
After mating, males need to escape quickly to avoid being eaten by the female. Females keep the eggs in a cocoon inside the burrow until they hatch and disperse. Trapdoor spiders have a lifespan between 5 to 20 years.
Habitat
Despite their name, this spider’s burrow doesn’t have a “trapdoor”, rather an open silk-lined funnel.
Huntsman Spider
A huntsman’s bite is venomous, causing local pain and swelling, nausea, headaches and heart palpitations.
Appearance and characteristics
One of the largest types of spiders in Australia, the Huntsman is easily noticed with a brownish-grey furry body and long crab-like legs. The average length of a huntsman spider is 2.5cm, with a leg span up to 12cm. Huntsmans don’t tend to drag their bellies, so they will only pick up chemicals on their legs and may take a few days to die. If you see one after our treatment, wait a few days for the treatment to take its course.
Lifecycle
After mating, the female will create a silk sack to store the eggs, reinforced with leaves, bark or rocks. Spiderlings hatch and disperse after about 3 weeks and they live for about 2 years or more.
Habitat
Huntsman spiders don’t build webs, instead they hide in dark places, using swift hunting skills to dart out and catch prey.
Funnel Web Spider
One of the most dangerous types of spiders in Australia, a bite from the highly venomous funnel web spider can cause serious injury or even death if left untreated. If you see signs of a funnel web burrow, do not go anywhere near it. Call Rebel Pest Professionals immediately.
Appearance and characteristics
Glossy dark colours such as brown, dark plum, or black. They are medium to large in size, with a body length of 1 to 5cm and leg length of 6 to 7cm.
Lifecycle
After mating, female funnel webs produce an egg sac containing around 100 eggs that is stored in the burrow until they hatch. Males usually die after mating, but female funnel web spiders can live for 5-6 years and reproduce multiple times.
Habitat
Funnel web spiders live in moist areas and forests all along the coast of Australia. Their burrows are found in sheltered areas, under rocks, logs, crevices, holes in trees, rockeries and dense shrubberies. The most distinctive sign of a Funnel-web’s burrow is the irregular silk “trip lines” that radiate out from the entrance. These trip lines alert the spider to prey, mates or danger.
Redback Spider
A redback spider bite is poisonous and very painful, resulting in nausea, vomiting, headache and swelling.
Appearance and characteristics
The female redback spider is black, easily distinguished by its large bulging abdomen with a prominent red stripe down the middle. The female grows to around 2cm in length. Males are similar looking to females, although they are a lot smaller and have more of a brownish coloured abdomen with brown and black striped legs.
Lifecycle
Spiderlings hatch from spring to early summer and disperse through a process called ‘ballooning’, where they float away on small silk strands. Males will live only around 6 to 7 months and usually die after mating, whereas females will live for up to 3 years.
Habitat
Redback spiders are mostly nocturnal, preferring dark locations such as garden beds, under the house or in the garage/shed.
White Tail Spider
White tail spiders often bite when threatened, but the venom isn’t particularly dangerous to humans, only causing mild pain, swelling, itchiness or discomfort.
Appearance and characteristics
White tip spiders are a reddish-grey in colour, with a whitish tip at the base of the abdomen. They are around 1-2cm in length.
Lifecycle
After mating, females store up to 90 eggs in a flat, disc-shaped silk hatch. The eggs will remain this sac, even after they’ve hatched until the springtime when they disperse.
Habitat
White tails are nomadic, preferring to live in dark crevices throughout the house. But they are also attracted to floral scented washing powder and bright colours so they can often be found in the washing.
Wolf Spider
Wolf spiders have excellent eyesight and are agile and efficient hunters, but they aren’t poisonous to humans.
Appearance and characteristics
Usually a greyish-brown in colour with dark markings on the hairy body and legs. They are about 1-3.5cm in body length.
Lifecycle
After mating, the male must escape quickly or risk being eaten by the female. The female then lays around 100 eggs and carries them around on her back for a few weeks after they hatch.
Habitat
Similar to trapdoors, wolf spiders live in silk-lined burrows in the yard.