Ruud Kleinpaste: White-tailed spiders!

There are a lot of nonsense stories around white-tails. People seem to be very frightened of them; I blame the media, who don’t seem to have a scientific bone in their body
These species are from Australia – came here in the 1800-s, probably with household goods in containers; we now have a couple of species Lampona cylindrata and Lampona murina.
Recent taxonomic investigations showed there are 61 species of white-tails in Australia; imagine what we’ve missed out on so far!
They are nocturnal hunters
Love to live on the outside of our houses – their favourite prey is grey house spider; the one that makes those messy cobwebs on weather boards and in the corner of windows – and yes… also the one that lives in your car’s side mirrors!
Warm summer: people sleep with windows open; easy entry for the spiders.
When disturbed, they tend to run quickly and hide in all sorts of nooks and crannies; yep – they may find their way under the sheets as well
White tails can and will bite when trapped or provoked.
But… the media reports of serious repercussions, including necrotising fasciatus – or - necrotising arachnidism (where the flesh starts to die as a result of an infection in the bite) are simply unsubstantiated – bad journalism and highly dodgy!
So far there is no white tail bite recorded where the biting spider was identified by an entomologist, and the patient was observed by medical experts, linking the whole cause and effect up in truly proper scientific manner.
The spider bites that have been followed up resulted in nothing more than a pair of red fang marks and a wee bit of short-lived pain
Then there is the Daddy-Longlegs myth:
White tails are unlikely to capture and devour these cellar spiders (Daddy Longlegs); I’ve tried it many times: put a white-tail and a Daddy-Longlegs in one container and see who eats who.
(Great trick for the classroom, by the way!)
In almost 100% of the cases the Daddy-Longlegs will wrap up the white tail before it even gets anywhere near the body of that long-legged spider!
Just thought I’d tell you about that,
So you can stop worrying!
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