Spiders of Australia


Mopsus mormon male
Green jumping spider Mopsus mormon


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This site aim is to show the common spiders of Australia by means of color photos and informative text.
These pages together contain over 2000 spider pictures with 520 species in 179 genera that were photographed in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Northern-Territory and Western Australia.

Pictures of spiders from NW-Europe and several links to venomous spiders and much more information can be found on the spider site of European spiders.

Spiders (class Arachnida) are eight-legged creatures belonging to a group (phylum) called Arthropoda that are different from insects (class Hexapoda) on several easy to see characteristics. They have no antennae, their eyes are like ours and not segmented, and they have four pairs of legs.
More general spider information can be found on these pages: Spider information.


Common backyard spiders.

Click on a picture or for a thumbnail overview here
for an overview of all pictures on this site.
Easy if you want to identify your spider by photo.
The Australian spider identification location chart may be easy to identify a spider by the location where you found it.

Thumbnail

Identification chart

Araneidae Araneidae Araneidae Nephila Deinopsis subrufa
St Andrew's cross Leaf-curling Garden orbweaver Golder orbweaver Netcasting
Cyrtophora mollucensis Tetragnathidae spiny spider Astracantha minax Missulena occatoria Pholcus phalangioides
Tent Long-jawed Spiny Mouse or primitive Daddy-longleg

Ariamnes colubrinus

Oxyopes Thomisus spectabilis Dolomedes_minor Scytodes thoracica
Stick Lynx Flower Fishing Spitting
Latrodectus hasselti /Myrmarachne sp. Lycosa musgravei Miturga lineata Opisthoncus
Redback Ant-mimicking Wolf Prowling Jumping
Neosparassus_salacius Badumna_insignis Dysdera_crocota Lampona cylindrata Atrax robustus
Huntsman Black house Slater-eating White-tailed Sydney funnelweb
Storena formosa Supunna picta Clubiona sp. Missulena occatoria Mopsus penicillatus
Spotted ground Wasp mimicking Sac Mouse Jumping

Australian animals are made very dangerous by documentaries featuring sharks, box jellyfishes, crocodiles, snakes and spiders in which they kill ferociously other creatures. Sometimes they are caught by fearless hunters in four-wheel drives or +2000 hp boats. It is true, bites of crocodiles, sharks and black mambas are to be avoided.
It is also suggested that bites of spiders will almost kill you instantly or can cause the affected limb falling off by ulceration and necrotic lesions. Luckily for us that is not true.

Two spiders should be avoided, the Sydney Funnel-web (Atrax robustus) that lives in a 100 km circle around Sydney and the Redback (Latrodectus hasselti). Their bites can be very painful. Are those two to be worried about? Since 1956 nobody died from a Redback bite and since 1980 nobody from a Sydney Funnel-web bite, because of the development of an antivenom and better medical treatment.
A recent study
by Isbister and Gray showed that the White-tail (Lampona species) spider bite is most probably harmless.
A review of the toxicity of several Australian spiders can be read here.
But if in doubt, leave the spider where it is and walk away. And, a bee sting is often more painful than most spider bites.
And if bitten? look here.


Links to the pages of families of Australian spiders

Amaurobiidae, Desidae, Dictynidae & Oecobiidae, lace web spiders
Araneidae, orb-weavers
Araneidae, nephila or golden orb web spiders
Araneidae, tent-web spiders
Clubionidae, Corrinidae & Gnaphosidae, sac spiders
Deinopidae, net-casting or ogre-faced spiders
Dysderidae, slater eating spiders
Eutichuridae, rainforest and garden sac spiders
Heteropodidae, huntsman spiders
Hersiliidae, two-tailed spiders
Lamponidae, white-tailed spiders
Linyphiidae, lattice web spiders
Lycosidae, wolf spiders
Mimetidae, pirate spiders
Miturgidae, prowling spiders
Mygalomorphae or primitive spiders
Nicodamidae, red and black spiders
Oxyopidae, lynx spiders
Philodromidae, small huntsman spiders
Pholcidae, daddy longlegs
Pisauridae, nursery web or fishing spiders
Salticidae, jumping spiders
Scytodidae, spitting spiders
Stiphididae, lattice web spiders
Tetragnathidae, long jawed spiders
Theridiidae, comb-footed spiders, (Red back)
Trochanteriidae, flat spiders
Thomisidae, crab spiders
Uloboridae, orb-web cribellate spiders
Zodariidae, burrow-making spiders
Zoridae, wandering spiders

Common spider information

Spider information
Australian spider identification location chart
The demystification of the toxicity of spiders
The anatomy of a spider
The spinnerets and the properties of silk
The construction of a wheel web
High resolution detail of the fangs of a spider
A perfect spider and bird watchers camping site in Queensland
The Australian Arachnology society
Salticidae of the world by Jerzy Proszynski
To the spider page of European spiders < --More links at the bottom of this page
 

 Literature

  1. Australian spiders in colour, R. Mascord, 1970, SBN 589 07065 7
  2. A guide to Australian spiders, Densy Clyne, 1969, SBN 17 004723 8
  3. Australian spiders, Keith C. McKeown, 1952
  4. Spider watch, B. Brunet, 1996, ISBN 0 7301 0486 9
  5. The silken web, B. Brunet, 1994, ISBN 0 7301 0401 X
  6. First field guide to Australian insects and spiders, S. Parish, 1997, ISBN 1 875932 55 0
  7. Amazing facts about Australian insects and spiders, S. Parish, 1997, ISBN 1 875932 35 6
  8. Spiders, Barbara York Main, 1976, ISBN 0 00 2165576 7
  9. Spiders of Australia, Trevor J. Hawkeswood, 2003, ISBN 9 54 642192 8
  10. A guide to spiders of Australia, Framenau, Baehr, Zborowski, 2014, ISBN978 1 921 51724 2
  11. A field guide to Spiders of Australia, R. Whyte, G Anderson, 2017 ISBN 978 0 643 10707 6
 
Checklist of Australian spiders from the Australian Arachnological Society

Australian spider sites

Australasian Arachnological Society
Arachnids of Robert Whyte
Brisbane spider field guide
Steve's Australian spider pics
Brisbane Spiders by Peter Chew
The Australian spider page from Glenda Crew
Queensland museum
Western Australian museum
Atlas of living Australia
Arkys spiders of Phil Edwards

To the spider page of European spiders < --More links at the bottom of this page

 
 


A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia
Order here

 


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Acknowledgements

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Ed Nieuwenhuys, 2 february 2024

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