Mon 28 Sep 2009
Beer With Bite
Posted by anaglyph under Australiana, Creepy
[16] Comments
Australia has really only two poisonous spiders of note, and this is one of them. It is called the Redback (after the red patch you can see on the end of its abdomen). Redback spiders hardly ever kill anyone anymore – the last certified recorded death was in the 1960s (although a bite from one would probably hurt and make you sick).
I found this one under our verandah. We have a lot of them. If I had to choose to have a lot of Redbacks under my house though, I would rather have this kind:
eeeek…. you found a redback under your house?
(I’ve just remembered those enormous spiders that frequented your house in the Blue Mountains too…..)
*shudder*
Those spiders were Huntsmen, and although look quite scary (and are BIG) they are quite timid and harmless.
Just don’t confuse them when you take a swig.
“Those spiders were Huntsmen, and although look quite scary (and are BIG) they are quite timid and harmless.”
Sure you’re talking about spider’s there Rev – Oh sorry I’ve been hanging around the Gimcrack too long.
The King
One kind o Redback is fer keepin undr th house, Revrend.
Th othr is fer keepin undr th sofa.
Atlas: I believe the effect is roughly the same if you indulge in the liquid version to too great an extent…
King Willy: Tsk. That’s the weakest double entendre to even grace the pages of The Cow. Go back to your tower and practise.
Joey: There are many things under my sofa, including coins, lint, Tic Tacs and Jesus.
I was bitten by a redback when I was a small princess. The nurse pointed out another man in the hospital ward who was bitten too, so that I wouldn’t feel so alone. He died that night.
Um… I think the nurse fibbed, and your hospital buddy died of something else. The last recorded adult death from a redback bite was in 1955, and the last recorded child fatality in 1966. The anti-venene is very effective and widely available, and the bites are not fatal in any case, mostly.
Even deaths from funnel web spiders are rare, and the last one of those was in the late 1970s.
Party Pooper Reverend.
(Oh, unless you’re MUCH older than I thought…)
Hey, give me a Giant Spider from 50’s B Movies anyday
You know, it has never occurred to me in all these years that the nurse fibbed to try and make me feel better. I wonder what she thought when it backfired so spectacularly. LOL.
It just made you feel twice as fortunate!
Don’t forget the mouse spider (easily mistaken by the untrained eye for the funnel-web. Apparently though, despite alleged extreme toxicity, it lacks the raw aggression of same and is thus not considered a serious threat.)
I’ve only ever seen one, at my primary school, and we poked it with a leaf, through which it stabbed sizeable holes with its fangs, back when I was young and stupid enough to go around poking dangerous looking things to see what would happen (I poked a death adder once, before I realized it was dead, at which point I picked it up and cycled home with it, hoping to score a cool skeleton.)
The mouse spider never seemed to be popular enough in the public mind to acquire its own beer brand. Then again, nor has the funnel-web or the death adder to the best of my knowledge…
There are actually a number of Australian spiders that are considered venomous, but rarely cause anything more serious than a very painful bite. And there is the white tailed spider which is linked to a very unpleasant blood &/or skin infection, but the jury is out on whether the spider’s venom is the culprit, or bacterial organisms in its environment that it somehow uses as a defense mechanism.
Personally, I’d probably pick up a bottle of Mouse Spider Ale – maybe there’s a market opportunity there….
This is the best post in years. Cheers.
You’re such a beer slut LoC!
(I like the new moniker by the way – it has a nice Chaucerish effect!)
Redbacks are okay, they’re on our side.