Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Friday 2 December 1966, page 8


Australia's deadliest

spider

MELBOURNE, Thursday. — The venom of the redback spider is more lethal in equal quantities than that of any other poisonous creature, according to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories.

The minute quantity injected by a redback spider's

bite can kill a child or send a robust adult to bed for days or weeks, according to a CSL booklet just published and distributed to doctors throughout Australia.

Written by a leading Australian naturalist. CSL scientist Mr J. R. Garnet, the booklet is entitled Spider, Insect and Man.

Mr Garnet says the redback, known also in Australia as the jockey spider and in NZ as the Katipo, is related to America's black widow spider.

Each female redback can produce up to 1,000 eggs and sufficient of these survive to ensure the species' wide distribution throughout town and country, he says.