Australia is the home to the world's most poisonous spiders, the most dangerous of which are the funnel-weavers. Most Australians have the telephone numbers of the emergency services and pest and spider control companies ready to hand at all times because, in recent years, their presence in human residential areas has increased rapidly. Scientists claim that this is due to changes in the climate.
Funnel-weavers, for example, have been on this Earth for 80 million years. Normally, they live in the forests where they live in hollow trees and logs and never come into contact with humans. This is no longer the case around Sydney. This Australian city has been expanding for many years and encroaching on the habitats of the spiders. Now the spiders have to share their traditional habitats with humans and so unwanted contact can hardly be avoided.
The Sydney Funnel Web, whose Latin name is Atrax robustus, is the most poisonous spider in the world. Biologist Jackie Adams of the Australian Reptile Park collects spiders' venom as a basis for manufacturing antiserum.
On Fraser Island, 120 km north of Brisbane, off the coast of Queensland, there is the largest colony of spiders in the world. Dr. Robert Raven, the "spiderman" among Australia's researchers, discovers innumerable finely-woven but extremely sturdy funnel-weaver webs. The reason is that the dingoes, Australian wild dogs, have decimated the spiders' natural predators, thus promoting the spread of the spiders.
