Australian Wildlife
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Photo 1 - Habitat. A view of a female guarding her egg sacks. She lives on our side fence in the cavity between the horizontal metal rail and vertical steel panels. Red Back spiders are very elusive and like to live in dark, protected locations. Fences, rocks, rubbish, wood-heaps, empty cans, under tables and chairs, or anywhere there is a safe place to hide. |
Photo 2 - Web. Red Back webs are distinctive and can easily be identified from those belonging to other spiders In this photo we can see how the web is laced from the hide-out to the ground. The connection at ground level is designed to give way as soon as something is caught in the web. The result being, the object is lifted off its feet and helplessly drawn towards the waiting spider. |
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Photo 3 - Adult female. Frontal shot of a young adult female spider. She had three egg sacks in her den. The large, round abdomen of younger spiders is often dark to reddish brown, but the unique red markings are still clearly visible . |
Photo 4 - Old female. The above photo shows the traditional black body and bright red stripe. Also note the long front legs that allow this spider to move very quickly. There was no evidence of egg sacks (which is unusual) and I have no idea what the cocoon looking thing is. |
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All photos on this page were taken using a Panasonic Lumix FZ50 digital camera. [ Back to main index page ] [ Back to spiders index page ] |