Up close and personal with one of the world's deadliest spiders

Record ID: 1662043

  • Title: Up close and personal with one of the world's deadliest spiders
  • Date: 2nd March 2022
  • Summary: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA (RECENT - FEBRUARY 18, 2022) (REUTERS) MALE SYDNEY FUNNEL-WEB SPIDER WITH TRACKER ATTACHED WALKING OVER GROUND AND LEAF LITTER AFTER BEING RELEASED. UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES PhD CANDIDATE CAITLIN CREAK WEIGHING SPIDER CREAK LOOKING AT SPIDER ON SCALES MALE SYDNEY FUNNEL-WEB SPIDER WITH TRACKER ATTACHED IN CONTAINER CREAK PUTTING LID ON CONTAINER AND PLACING CONTAINER ON SCALE (SOUNDBITE) (English) PhD CANDIDATE, CAITLIN CREAK, SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (BEES) UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SAYING: “In the morning, I’ll come back and I’ll be able to see how far he’s gone overnight. Normally, on their first night, they’re a little bit like, oh my god, what’s just happened? So, they usually just camp out for a bit. But once they’re used to having a tracker on, they’re off. They can go, God, anywhere between a metre to sixty metres in a night, that I’ve recorded. So, we just record how far they’re going each night.” A MALE SYDNEY FUNNEL-WEB SPIDER LEAVING THE CONTAINER AND SCAMPERING OFF WITH TRACKER ATTACHED (SOUNDBITE) (English) PhD CANDIDATE, CAITLIN CREAK, SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (BEES) UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SAYING: “I’d love to see if we have things affecting their movement, like, humidity or rain. Because we often hear in the media, ‘when it rains, the funnel webs come out’. But we don’t actually have any data to support that. Yes, we may see them more but it could just be a coincidence with the mating season that they have. So, very curious to look into that. It’s also pretty cool to see how far these boys can travel in one night. It could have implications on people in their back yards and if they have a female in their back yard, how many males are they going to see? You never know.” MALE SYDNEY FUNNEL-WEB SPIDER WITH TRACKER ATTACHED WALKING ON LEAF LITTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) PhD CANDIDATE, CAITLIN CREAK, SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (BEES) UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SAYING: “As everyone knows, the Sydney funnel-web has a human lethal venom, which is just a bit of an evolutionary coincidence, as we suspect at this stage. So, that’s kind of all we know about them, to be honest. We don’t actually really know anything else in terms of their behaviour, their biology or their ecology. My whole PhD project will be working on various aspects of their behaviour, their lifestyle, that sort of thing. This is just one of those aspects. I’m hoping to look into the diet in the future, that’s sort of thing, because hopefully then we will get a better understanding of why this really amazing venom has evolved.” CREAK WALKING ON PATH LOOKING FOR FUNNEL-WEBS POINT OF VIEW SHOT OF CREAK WALKING ON PATH LOOKING FOR FUNNEL-WEBS VARIOUS OF CREAK SEARCHING FOR SPIDERS UNDER BARK CREAK LOOKING AT FUNNEL-WEB BURROW SILK OUTSIDE FUNNEL-WEB BURROW (SOUNDBITE) (English) PhD CANDIDATE, CAITLIN CREAK, SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (BEES) UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SAYING: “So, the silk here is fairly typical of a funnel-web burrow. They’ll have this silk coming out and you can see down here, we’ve got some trip lines coming out and that sort of alerts them if there’s some prey crawling across their web, they can run out and grab it. We also suspect that the males will probably use this to court the females. So, they probably come up to their silk here and tap along it and vibrate to sort of get her to do a little dance and come out and see if she’s keen to mate with him. Yeah.” SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA (RECENT - FEBRUARY 22, 2022) (REUTERS) CREAK WALKING ALONG TRACK WITH VOLUNTEER HUGO MUIRHEAD (R) CREAK HOLDING ANTENNA ON RECEIVER TO LISTEN AND TRACK LOCATION OF SPIDER BEEPS ON RECEIVER PICKED UP FROM SPIDER’S TRACKER ANTENNA BEING MOVED OVER LOG (SOUNDBITE) (English) PhD CANDIDATE, CAITLIN CREAK, SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (BEES) UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SAYING: “There are a lot of rocks here. He could be under something. Normally I’d be getting a stronger signal if we were closer. But it’s still quite a faint signal so we’re not quite close enough yet". ANTENNA OVER LOG AND GRASS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PhD CANDIDATE, CAITLIN CREAK, SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (BEES) UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SAYING: “He’s in there. He’s in a burrow still.” (SOUNDBITE) (English) PhD CANDIDATE, CAITLIN CREAK, SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (BEES) UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SAYING: “They’re so present in our world that it seems kind of weird to me that people aren’t interested in them. Because they’re so present, especially in our lives being in Australia, and being in Sydney, we obviously we see the Sydney funnel-web a lot, which is why I study that one. That species in particular. But I mean, every Sydneysider’s probably had an experience with a huntsman (spider) running across their car windscreen, which is always a bit of a shock to the system. But, why are they doing that? In my opinion, I think we’re with them all the time, we might as well try and coexist and to do that, we need to know more about them.”
  • Embargoed: 16th March 2022 00:47
  • Keywords: AUSTRALIA CAITLIN CREAK FUNNEL-WEB PhD SYDNEY TRACKING
  • Location: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
  • City: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
  • Country: Australia
  • Topics: Asia / Pacific,Australia,Environment,Nature/Wildlife
  • Reuters ID: LVA001920123022022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A Sydney funnel-web spider is released back into the Australian bush with a telemetry tracker attached to study how far a mature male can travel at night, and whether their movements are affected by environmental conditions and weather.
    Caitlin Creak, a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences of the University of New South Wales, has been tracking the male Sydney funnel-web for two summers. The nocturnal arachnid lives within about 100-kilometer radius of Australia’s largest city and is mostly active between November and April.
    Having grown up in Australia’s bushland, the 27-year-old is no stranger to spiders. Her real love for them grew after she started her biology degree at university and had a chance to learn about and interact with the “wonderful” creatures. Seeing how little people know about spiders, and how often they are misunderstood,
    Creak decided to unlock the mysteries surrounding them.
    And for her Ph.D. candidacy, Creak chose to study the Sydney funnel-web, one of the world’s deadliest spiders. While most of the current studies are about its venom and taxonomy, Creak’s study focuses on their behaviour and ecology.
    “As everyone knows, the Sydney funnel-web has a human lethal venom, which is just a bit of an evolutionary coincidence, as we suspect at this stage. So, that’s kind of all we know about them, to be honest. We don’t actually really know anything else in terms of their behaviour, their biology, or their ecology,” she said.
    To be able to attach the tracker safely, the highly venomous spider must first be put to sleep with carbon dioxide, which is standard practice for sedating invertebrates, Creak said.
    The spider would doze for a couple of minutes on a wet sponge installed to keep it hydrated, while Creak places a second donut-shaped sponge around its head to safely glue on the small tracking device, which is slightly bigger than a grain of rice, to the male spider’s cephalothorax (fused head and thorax).
    Creak is extremely cautious when handling the spider, never touching them with her hands. She uses 30-centimetre long forceps and when awake the spider is kept in a thick plastic container.
    Weather permitting, Creak would track the spider daily, for as long as the trackers stay functional. They can sometimes become dislodged, and the tiny batteries tend to last about a month.
    “In the morning, I’ll come back, and I’ll be able to see how far he’s gone overnight…Once they’re used to having a tracker on, they’re off. They can go, God, anywhere between a metre to sixty metres in a night, that I’ve recorded. So, we just record how far they’re going each night.” said Creak. “I’d love to see if we have things affecting their movement, like, humidity or rain.”
    It is no easy task to track the elusive fast-crawling arachnid. With a receiver and antenna, Creak would tread carefully over a small area of vegetation, logs, and leaf litter. The telemetry tracker on the spider sends beeps to the receiver using radio frequency, as Creaks gets close.javascript:void(0);
    Creak says during her Ph.D., she would be working on various aspects of the spider's behaviour, ecology, biology, and studying the environmental impact on their habitat. "This (tracking) is just one of those aspects. I’m hoping to look into the diet in the future, that’s sort of thing. Because hopefully then we will get a better understanding of why this really amazing venom has evolved," she said.
    Australia has many species of funnel-webs but only the male Sydney Funnel-web is responsible for human deaths, while only thirteen deaths have been recorded, more than 30 people are bitten by the spider each year, according to the Australian Museum.
    Slightly larger than a female, the males, live 5 to 7 years before going through their final moult, become sexually mature, and leaving their burrow permanently to seek out females receptive to mating. They will die within three to four months after mating.
    Creak says it’s not clear how many times a male will mate before it dies but tracking them has shown they can enter multiple burrows, whether that’s just a social visit or for mating, it’s not known for sure.
    Females are thought to live five to 10 years before reaching maturity and live much longer after mating. Further research is needed, but Creak says that females are thought to rarely leave their burrows, in her study she has seen on average one female outside her burrow, compared to 15 to 20 males.
    By the end of her tracking project, Creak aims to have enough data to publish a paper to be included in her Ph.D. thesis later.
    “Every Sydneysider’s probably had an experience with a huntsman (spider) running across their car windscreen, which is always a bit of a shock to the system. But why are they doing that? In my opinion, I think we’re with them all the time, we might as well try and coexist, and to do that, we need to know more about them,” said Creak during a recent tracking expedition.
    (Production: Jill Gralow)
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