Funnel-Web Spiders in Melbourne

How to identify a funnel-web spider

A funnel-web is a glossy, dark brown to black spider with a stout, muscular build, strong legs and prominent fangs that become clearly visible when it rears up in a defensive posture. Museums Victoria gives the Victorian funnelweb a body length of around two centimetres in the male and up to three centimetres in the female, with a shiny black cephalothorax and legs and a darker abdomen. It is a ground-dwelling spider that lives in a silk-lined burrow in damp soil or under a log, sometimes with a scatter of silk trip-lines fanning out from the entrance.

That habitat is a large part of the identification. A genuine funnel-web is found low down in moist, sheltered ground in forested country, and it would never be spun across a window frame or a sunny brick wall. The dark, glossy, ground-dwelling look sets it apart from the leggy house spiders, though it does resemble the mouse spider, another stout, dark, burrowing species, closely enough that the two are easily confused, which is one of the reasons a cautious response to any such spider is wise.

Funnel-webs and Melbourne: the accurate picture

The spider that gives the group its fearsome reputation is the Sydney funnel-web, Atrax robustus. The Australian Museum describes its range as centred on the greater Sydney region of New South Wales, from the Central Coast south to the Georges River and west toward the Blue Mountains. It does not occur in Melbourne, so the species behind the worst bites in the country is not the one Melbourne residents are dealing with.

What Melbourne does have is its own species, the Victorian funnelweb, Hadronyche modesta, which lives in the moister forested country to the city's east, through the Dandenong Ranges and the outer hills, in burrows in damp ground and under logs. It is a spider of the wetter bushland fringe, and Museums Victoria records that it rarely bites and has not been implicated in any fatalities or serious illness, unlike its Sydney relative. Suburban Melbourne backyards are not its habitat, so most households across the city will never come across one, and even in the eastern hill fringe encounters are uncommon.

Why the group still deserves respect

Setting the local picture out honestly does not mean waving the group away, because the funnel-web genus as a whole is genuinely medically significant. The Australian Museum records dozens of Australian funnel-web species across three genera, several of them known for highly toxic, fast-acting venom. The reason for a cautious response in Victoria is less about the local species being deadly and more about the difficulty of being sure what you are looking at.

A dark, stout, burrowing spider glimpsed in a garden could be a Victorian funnelweb, or it could be a mouse spider, whose venom is potent enough that funnel-web antivenom is used for a serious mouse spider bite. A nervous person is in no position to tell them apart with confidence, and the safe course when the identity is uncertain is to assume the more serious possibility and act accordingly. That is why the standard advice for any suspected funnel-web bite is the full emergency response, even though the local funnelweb itself has caused no serious harm on record.

Funnel-web bite: emergency first aid

Any bite from a spider you believe could be a funnel-web should be treated as a medical emergency. The correct technique is pressure immobilisation, the same method used for snake bite: apply a firm bandage over the bite and continue bandaging up the whole limb, splint or otherwise keep the limb still, keep the person as calm and motionless as possible, and call 000 for an ambulance immediately. Better Health Channel sets out this pressure bandaging approach for funnel-web and mouse spider bites and advises seeking immediate medical help. Keeping still slows the movement of venom and buys time.

The reassuring part of the picture is the treatment. An effective antivenom for funnel-web envenomation has been available since 1981, and the Australian Museum records that there have been no deaths from the Sydney funnel-web since it was introduced. The Victorian Poisons Information Centre can be reached at any hour on 13 11 26 for guidance, though a suspected funnel-web bite warrants calling 000 first and getting the person to hospital.

Where they live, and reducing the risk at home

Funnel-webs are spiders of damp, sheltered ground, so the properties most likely to see one are those on the moister, bushier eastern fringe of Melbourne, backing onto forested bushland in the Dandenongs and the outer hills. On those properties the spiders shelter in burrows in damp soil, under logs and rocks, in leaf litter and in the cool, humid ground beside garden beds and retaining walls. Males wander in the warmer months in search of females, which is when a spider is most likely to turn up away from its burrow, occasionally falling into a pool or wandering into a garage overnight.

If you live in that fringe, a few sensible habits lower the small risk of an accidental encounter. Wear gloves when working in damp garden beds and moving logs, rocks or mulch, check the bottom of a swimming pool before reaching in, and avoid leaving shoes and gloves outside overnight where a wandering male might shelter in them. Reducing damp harbourage close to the house, such as piles of logs and heavy leaf litter against the walls, makes the ground beside the building less inviting to a burrowing spider.

Funnel-web spider FAQs