A ginormous and deadly funnel-web spider has been handed in to a reptile park in Australia, where staff said it was the largest of its kind they\u2019d ever seen. <\/p>\n
Fittingly named Hemsworth, the spider spans 9.2 centimeters (about 3.6 inches) from foot to foot, according to the Australian Reptile Park. It surpasses the record set by the park\u2019s previous biggest, Hercules, which measured 7.9 centimeters (3.1 inches) and was donated in January 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cHemsworth, he\u2019s different. He is the biggest spider,\u201d said the park\u2019s spider keeper Emma Teni, in a video posted on its official Facebook page. <\/p>\n
The spider is named after the Hemsworth brothers \u2013 Chris, Liam and Luke \u2013 who are among some of the most notable Australian actors in Hollywood. <\/p>\n
The spider Hemsworth was handed in at one of the park\u2019s drop-off locations in Newcastle, a coastal city around 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Sydney. <\/p>\n
Park staff first thought it was a female spider due to its size. However, upon closer inspection, they soon realized it was a male. <\/p>\n
According to the Australian Museum, the average length of a funnel-web spider\u2019s body is 1 to 5 centimeters, with male spiders typically smaller than females. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re used to having pretty big funnel-web spiders donated to the park but receiving a male funnel-web this big is like hitting the jackpot,\u201d Teni said to Sky News Australia. <\/p>\n
Hemsworth\u2019s fangs will now be \u201cmilked\u201d to extract venom, which will be turned into life-saving antivenom. Only male funnel-web spiders are milked as they are about six times more venomous than females. <\/p>\n
Funnel-webs, whose most dangerous species lives in and around Sydney, are known for their deadly, fast-acting venom. Before the antivenom was introduced in 1981, 13 people died as a result of funnel-web bites. Since its introduction, there have been no fatalities. <\/p>\n
The park urges residents of Sydney and nearby areas at the start of every breeding season to beware and to carefully, and calmly, collect both the funnel-web spider and any of its eggs if they spot one so that they can be used to make antivenom. <\/p>\n
Despite its size, Hemsworth is by no means the largest type of spider in Australia. <\/p>\n
That title goes to a species of the tarantula known as the whistling spider, due to the noise it emits when provoked. The body length of the species can grow to 6 centimeters (about 2.36 inches) and they can have a leg span of 16 centimeters (about 6.3 inches), according to the Australian Museum. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A ginormous and deadly funnel-web spider has been handed in to a reptile park in Australia, where staff said it was the largest of its kind they\u2019d ever seen. Fittingly named Hemsworth, the spider spans 9.2 centimeters (about 3.6 inches) from foot to foot, according to the Australian Reptile Park. It surpasses the record set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}