Backyard Zoology · 22 December 2019
2019-12-22T19:30:49+11:00
https://www.facebook.com/backyardzoology/posts/pfbid03mrr4zsPeHJSABmrbrkXYjDKQFSy1kmwvjiUBMfhZNizMR8CTNZsHc8NYVHKRdqBl

Husband: Come quick! I found a new spider in the shower! Look at its interesting back.

Me: *runs screaming ... for camera

So this lovely young lady was hanging under the lip of our mop bucket which due to the ridiculous size of our house and the fact that Matt uses our laundry for an office is often in the shower with us. I know, living the tiny dream 😂🙌 Now Matthew has never been a huge spider fan but that is slowly changing and the fact that he not only found a spider, but squatted his naked self down (now, there's an image for you ladies, you're welcome!) to get a nice close look, is proof of that. 

I had to get down on my hands and knees on the bathroom tiles, putting my glasses on top of my head and leaning right in, squinting to try and focus (and that's your image for this evening gentlemen! You're also welcome!) and as soon as I saw it, tiny as it was, I was pretty damn excited. I've never seen a juvenile before having only seen the one lovely adult hanging out in our bedroom many moons ago, and the few that used to live under the upturned milk crate that my dad would sit on while watching his bird aviary - and his black and blue and swollen hand after one had a bit of a nibble one day!

I had a quick rummage through one of the drawers and found a sheet face mask which turned out to be an okay means of transportation to get the little girl back outside. Turns out, Redbacks are fast! The faster it ran across the package, the faster I scooted towards the door. There were a couple of anxious moments when it bungy jumped on its silk thread off the edge and I put my hand out underneath it, more to give it something to stand out against rather than to actually catch it, before twisting the shiny surface over again and scooping the spider back up again. They are of course venomous so if I could have used the old glass and cardboard trick I would have but it was in an awkward position and wet and needed to get outside and let's face it, I probably wasn't going to use the face mask anyway.

As far as danger goes, these spiders are venomous and produce an extremely painful bite, chest or abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting and sweating and the bite of the juvenile is supposedly as powerful as that of the female adult, probably not a critter you want to spend a lot of time next to naked. Deaths from these spiders are incredibly rare so I wasn't too worried but it did mean that I got very few photos as this was not a spider I felt too comfortable messing with. But thanks to me and my sheet face mask, the husband can now happily shower naked again, just him and the mop bucket. What a lucky guy! 😂   

Juvenile Redback Spider
Northern Illawarra