# What's a poisonous Australian spider doing on my desk? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 16, 2007, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300 "2007-06-16T23:13:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/41 "2007-06-20T01:52:10Z")
Well I’ll be dadgummed. They’re basically [little arachnid versions](http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Uloboridae/) of the ancient Roman retiarii or net-men gladiators: > [@](#): > > They spin flat webs that often look like an orb web or a piece of an orb web. Hackled orbweavers usually spin their webs horizontally, unlike the regular orbweaver family that makes their webs vertical. > > The webs made by this family aren’t sticky. Instead they are made with “hackled” silk, which is fuzzy and has lots of tiny fibers. These little fibers easily tangle up prey. Also, many species of hackled orbweavers stretch their webs and hold them tight. When a prey animal bumps into the web, it lets go of the web so that it collapses around the unlucky insect. Whenever they catch an animal in their web, they grab it and wrap it in more hackled silk. (That’s from a “Critter Catalog” site for children, by the way. Kids these days with their humiliatingly sophisticated science…) ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/42 "2007-06-20T02:57:18Z")
Isn’t there a spider (in Hawaii, I think) that actually tosses it’s web over it’s prey? My name is mangeorge. I am a PBS addict. I love this stuff! :o ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/43 "2007-06-20T03:19:24Z")
[QUOTE=mangeorge] Isn’t there a spider (in Hawaii, I think) that actually tosses it’s web over it’s prey? My name is mangeorge. I am a PBS addict. I love this stuff! :o [/QUOTE] There is a whole family of them - net-casting spiders (Family Deinopidae) which live all over the world in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Genus Deinopis hangs upside down from twigs or some other support, and strecthes out a net (actually a segment of an orb web) between its front legs ready to drop on passing prey. They have huge eyes and reasonably good sight for spiders. They have the best faces, so are often called Ogre-faced spiders. [Ogre-faced spiders](http://www.darlingtonschool.org/faculty/okinney/Natural%20History/Spider%20Web/Final%20Web%20Versions/Ogre-faced%20wallin.htm) They are supposed to be here where I live in Australia, but despite hunting and hunting I have never seen one. It is one of my Big Goals in life. (I am in the final stages of preparing a manuscript on spiders for my publisher and am sitting at a table surrounded by books on spiders, which also happen to be my passion. Your questions are doing a great job of prompting me to make sure I include the things which interest people. ) ---
**Author:** ![Fetchund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b2d939/32.png) [@Fetchund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fetchund)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/44 "2007-06-20T10:40:52Z")
Looks like an Ewok! (Don’t forget Trap-door spiders - one of my favorite!) ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/45 "2007-06-20T13:22:51Z")
[QUOTE=Fetchund] Looks like an Ewok! (Don’t forget Trap-door spiders - one of my favorite!) [/QUOTE] Don’t get me started on trapdoors or you’ll never shut me up. Ours don’t have doors on their burrows, just to be difficult. Our mouse spiders do. I have over 300 trapdoor burrows marked with white plastic knives so I can find them easily on my nightly rounds. That is just within 30 metres of the house - and we have 17 acres of bush! What are your trapdoor burrows like? Do they have lids? I wish I had tarantulas, but I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/46 "2007-06-20T18:47:48Z")
Foreign spiders are no stranger to Seattle. I give you [the Hobo spider](http://www.hobospider.com/info/) ---
**Author:** ![hawksgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ed655f/32.png) [@hawksgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawksgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/47 "2007-06-20T18:50:52Z")
[QUOTE=xizor] Foreign spiders are no stranger to Seattle. I give you [the Hobo spider](http://www.hobospider.com/info/) [/QUOTE] Geez Hobo Spider, get a job, man. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2007, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/48 "2007-06-21T04:17:08Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] \ The backstroke? \ [/QUOTE] More likely, the [Australian crawl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_crawl)! ---
**Author:** ![swedishxtheek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@swedishxtheek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swedishxtheek)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2007, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300/49 "2007-06-21T06:39:17Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Good job too, as they’re well known for jumping up your nose when you’re asleep. [/QUOTE] Great. Thanks to everbody writing about spiders in the nose and spiders running all over and pictures of spiders and pictures of spider bites, I’m sitting in my desk chair feeling imaginary spiders crawl all over me. Awesome. Not that I don’t like spiders. I do. They’re cool little guys. I just don’t want them around me if they’re not behind Plexiglass at the Bronx Zoo. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poisonous-australian-spider-doing-on-my-desk/408300.md?page=2)