Our Most Deadly Visitor

We love our new home, but living on the north shore in a sandstone area comes with its own special problems. On returning home one night Laura asked what the big bug crawling across our doorstep was...

On closer inspection we found our first Sydney funnel web spider, the most venomous spider in the world trying to make its way to our door. Luckily our landlord had copiously sprayed the door areas with hardcore death spray, so the spider was on its last legs (sorry for pun). I finished it of with morteen (another hardcore death spray), which didn't make it that happy - lots of hissing and raised legs & fangs.

Here's a little more info on our visitors special gift:

The bite is usually immediately painful, and if substantial envenomation occurs, symptoms commence usually within a few minutes. They include, progressively:

• Piloerection, sweating, muscle twitching (facial and intercostal, initially), salivation, lacrimation, tachycardia, and then (fairly rapidly) severe hypertension.


• Vomiting, airway obstruction, muscle spasms, writhing, grimacing, pulmonary oedema (of neurogenic or hypertensive origin), extreme hypertension.


• Unconsciousness, raised intracranial pressure, widely dilated pupils (often fixed), uncontrolled twitching, and death unless artificial ventilation is provided. After about 2 hours the muscle fasiculations and most symptoms start to subside, and are replaced with insidious but profound hypotension, primarily due to severe cardiac failure.

NICE!