Newcastle Funnel-web
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Newcastle Funnel-web
The Newcastle funnel-web spider (''Atrax christenseni''), also known as Newcastle big boy, is a species of venomous mygalomorph funnel-web spider in the family Atracidae, native to an area north of Newcastle in Australia. Description Atrax christenseni is considered a very large species of funnel-web spider, with adult males exhibiting notable size. The largest recorded male individual measured approximately 9.2 cm (3.6 in) across, including the span of the legs, making it one of the largest members of the genus ''Atrax''.Natural History Museum Bern. (n.d.).''Atrax christenseni'' Dupérré & Smith, 2025 ''World Spider Catalog''. Retrieved January 13, 2025. This considerable size, combined with its potent venom, has contributed to the species’ reputation for being among the most venomous and dangerous spiders in the world. Despite the species’ high venom potency, no fatalities have been documented, largely due to the availability of an effective antivenom. The antivenom dev ...
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Mygalomorph
The Mygalomorphae, or mygalomorphs, are an infraorder of spiders, and comprise one of three major groups of living spiders with over 3,000 species, found on all continents except Antarctica. Many members are known as trapdoor spiders due to their creation of trapdoors over their burrows. Other prominent groups include Australian funnel web spiders and tarantulas, with the latter accounting for around one third of all mygalomorphs. Description This group of spiders comprises mostly heavy-bodied, stout-legged spiders including tarantulas, Australian funnel-web spiders, mouse spiders, and various families of spiders commonly called trapdoor spiders. Like the " primitive" suborder of spiders Mesothelae, they have two pairs of book lungs, and downward-pointing chelicerae. Because of this, the two groups were once believed to be closely related. Later it was realised that the common ancestors of all spiders had these features (a state known as symplesiomorphy). Following the b ...
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Funnel-web Spider
Funnel-web spider refers to many different species of spider, particularly those that spin a web in the shape of a funnel: * spiders in the family Agelenidae, including ** '' Hololena curta'' * funnel-web tarantulas (suborder Mygalomorphae): ** family Atracidae, Australian funnel-web spiders, some of which produce venom dangerous to humans, including *** Sydney funnel-web spider (''Atrax robustus'') ** family Dipluridae ** family Hexathelidae ** family Nemesiidae ** family Macrothelidae, sole genus ''Macrothele ''Macrothele'' is a genus of mygalomorph spiders in the family Macrothelidae, and was first described by A. Ausserer in 1871. Most of the species in the genus occur in Asia, from India to Japan, and Java, with five found in Africa, and two in ...'' ** family Mecicobothriidae, dwarf tarantulas or sheet funnel-web spiders ** family Porrhothelidae, sole genus '' Porrhothele'' {{Animal common name Set index articles on spiders ...
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Newcastle, New South Wales
Newcastle, also commonly referred to as Greater Newcastle ( ; ), is a large Metropolitan area, metropolitan area and the second-most-populous such area of New South Wales, Australia. It includes the cities of City of Newcastle, Newcastle and City of Lake Macquarie, Lake Macquarie and it is the hub of the List of suburbs in Greater Newcastle, New South Wales, Lower Hunter region, which includes most parts of the cities of City of Newcastle, Newcastle, City of Lake Macquarie, Lake Macquarie, City of Maitland, Maitland, City of Cessnock, Cessnock, and Port Stephens Council. Newcastle is also known by its colloquial nickname, Newy. A Newcastle resident can also be known as a Wiktionary, Novocastrian. Located at the mouth of the Hunter River (New South Wales), Hunter River, it is the predominant city within the Hunter Region. Famous for its Hunter Valley Coal Chain, coal, Newcastle is the largest coal exporting harbour in the world, exporting 143 million tonnes of coal in 2022. Beyon ...
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Sydney Funnel-web Spider
The Sydney funnel-web spider (''Atrax robustus'') is a species of venomous Mygalomorphae, mygalomorph spider native to eastern Australia, usually found within a radius of Sydney. It is a member of a group of spiders known as Australian funnel-web spiders. Its bite is capable of causing serious illness or death in humans if left untreated. The Sydney funnel-web has a body length ranging from . Both sexes are glossy and darkly coloured, ranging from blue-black, to black, to shades of brown or dark-plum coloured. Taxonomy Octavius Pickard-Cambridge was the first to describe the Sydney funnel-web spider, from a female specimen housed in the British Museum in 1877. Establishing the genus ''Atrax'', he named it ''Atrax robustus''. The species name is derived from the Latin ''robustus'', "strong/sturdy/mature". Some years later, William Joseph Rainbow described a male Sydney funnel-web as a new species—''Euctimena tibialis''—from a spider he found under a log in Turramurra, and ...
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Spiders Of Australia
Australia has a number of highly venomous spiders, including the Sydney funnel-web spider, its relatives in the family Hexathelidae, and the redback spider, whose bites can be extremely painful and have historically been linked with deaths in medical records. Most Australian spiders do not have venom that is considered to be dangerously toxic. No deaths caused by spider bites in Australia have been substantiated by a coronial inquest since 1979. There are sensationalised news reports regarding Australian spiders that fail to cite evidence. ''A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia'' published by CSIRO Publishing in 2017 featuring around 836 species illustrated with photographs of live animals, around 381 genera and 78 families, introduced significant updates to taxonomy from Ramirez, Wheeler and Dmitrov. Estimates put the total number of Australian spider species at about 10,000. Only around 3,600 have been described. Little information is known about many undiscovered species. New ...
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Arthropods Of New South Wales
Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated ( metameric) segments, and paired jointed appendages. In order to keep growing, they must go through stages of moulting, a process by which they shed their exoskeleton to reveal a new one. They form an extremely diverse group of up to ten million species. Haemolymph is the analogue of blood for most arthropods. An arthropod has an open circulatory system, with a body cavity called a haemocoel through which haemolymph circulates to the interior organs. Like their exteriors, the internal organs of arthropods are generally built of repeated segments. They have ladder-like nervous systems, with paired ventral nerve cords running through all segments and forming paired ganglia in each segment. Their heads are formed by fusion of varying numbers of segments, and their brains are formed by fusi ...
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Endemic Fauna Of Australia
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or, in scientific literature, as an ''endemite''. Similarly, many species found in the Western ghats of India are examples of endemism. Endemism is an important concept in conservation biology for measuring biodiversity in a particular place and evaluating the risk of extinction for species. Endemism is also of interest in evolutionary biology, because it provides clues about how changes in the environment cause species to undergo range shifts (potentially expanding their range into a larger area or becomin ...
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Spiders Described In 2025
Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every land habitat. , 53,034 spider species in 136 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been debate among scientists about how families should be classified, with over 20 different classifications proposed since 1900. Anatomically, spiders (as with all arachnids) differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax or prosoma, and the opisthosoma, or abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel. However, as there is currently neither paleontological nor embryological evidence that spiders ever had a separate tho ...
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