what creepy crawlies do you have in your area

dave06 · Guru

what creepy crawlies do you have in your area

Basil Faulty · Guru

dave06 wrote:

just reading another earlier post and thought that it might be a good idea to let it be known about the known "nasties" that dwell in "your" region.

perhaps if we list the little "bighties" in our backyard then our visitors from another state may have an idea of what to be aware of

for instance here in the flinders in south aus. we have red back spider, white tail spider, funnel web spider, brown snake, red bellied black snake, centipede, inch ants, bull ants, and black ants

We have most of those in the ACT but we also have red meat ants that are quite agressive. Not sure what "inch ants" are, are they the ants that are about an inch long and rear up to bight when disturbed? We call them Bull ants and a bite from them needs a shot of anti histamine. We also have some nasty wasps that become agressive in the warmer months. Of course we also have Platypus in the rivers around here and if a male gets his spurs into you you will know it but the CSIRO gets an annual budget of around $1,000,000 to develope an anti venom as 1 person has actually died in 1879 from attack by Platypus.

drongo & wendy · Senior Member

Here in my part of Victoria we have all the above other than the funnel web spider [im allergic to ants damm] just a thought while the misses is in Albury shopping . ummm she has quiet a bite to her at times but i didnt say that.
Dave D

dave06 · Guru

you are indeed a brave man Dave, Basil we too have the bull ants but the "inch ants" are a larger and more agressive little feller and yes they are about an inch long, we are also starting to see the european wasp which is a bit of a worry

hard to imagine getting beaten up by a rampaging platypus but I guess strange things happen

Valderi · Veteran Member

Hi Guys
What a great idea Dave, I'm in Victoria in Whittllesea we have most of what you mentioned but no funnel web spiders and inch long ants but we get more then our fair share of white tail spiders, on occasion they even crash down with me at night and sleep under my pillow, as long as thats all they do I can live with that.
Cheers Frank.

dave06 · Guru

hell frank be carefull mate, apparently the white tail spider carries a disease in its fangs, now this disease causes necratitus, which simply put makes the bite area "die" it then continues killing the flesh and if not treated by major surgery (slicing out the effected area and a fair bit around it) then you may lose a limb or worse your life

you may see a couple of results of these bites on youtube, just poke in white tail spider bite, there is a couple of ones that are obviously fake but the real ones are very scary