This poisonous “megaspider” is an arachnophobe’s biggest nightmare
A zoo in Somersby, Australia was left flabbergasted after receiving an anonymous donation of a giant funnel web spider — armed with powerful fangs that can pierce a human fingernail. A Facebook clip of the creepy crawly is currently blowing up online.
“Having a megaspider handed into the venom program is so amazing,” Michael Tate, education officer of New South Wales’ Australian Reptile Park, told Storyful of the mammoth female arachnid. It was deposited by an unknown samaritan at one of the zoo’s many drop boxes as part of their spider venom antidote program.
Measuring over 3 inches long (twice the length of a normal spider) with nearly 1-inch fangs, the specimen was the biggest Tate had seen in his “30-plus years at the park.”
Footage uploaded by the zoo shows the Shelob-esque spider ominously posed next to hats, coins and other objects to showcase its massive size. At one point it rears up like a cobra to flash humongous fangs, which can reportedly penetrate a human fingernail.
Despite their creepy countenance, funnel webs generally prefer to eat cockroaches, millipedes and other arthropods, which they detect via silken trip lines placed outside their burrows.
The Australian Reptile Park said that the recent wet and humid weather has provided ideal conditions for funnel webs to flourish, the Daily Mail reported.
The park didn’t specify the exact kind of funnel web the specimen was. However, Australia boasts 40 or so species, including the notorious Sydney Funnel Web Spider, which has been responsible for 13 deaths Down Under, the Australian Museum reported. Thankfully, none have been recorded since anti-venom program was introduced in 1981.
In fact, the Australian Reptile Park specializes in milking funnel web spiders for the raw venom used in the antidote, which is reportedly responsible for saving 300 lives per year, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
The institution claims that similarly monstrous spiders can provide a major injection to their antivenom supply.
“She is unusually large and if we can get the public to hand in more spiders like her, it will only result in more lives being saved due to the huge amount of venom they can produce,” said Tate. “We are really keen to find out where she came from in hopes to find more massive spiders like her.”
