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Sticker of Sydney funnel-web spider
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Sydney funnel-web spider

Atrax robustus
Name means: “strong and sturdy”
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersGardens and meadows8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Sydney funnel-web spider is a big, shiny, dark spider that lives around the city of Sydney in Australia. It lives in a silk-lined tunnel in damp ground, with silk trip-lines spread out around the door. When an animal walks over a line, the spider rushes out to catch it.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Eastern Australia, mostly within about 100 kilometres of Sydney
Length
1 to 5 cm (0.39 to 2 in)
Top speed
about 2.7 km/h (1.7 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Dangerous: look, do not touch
What does it eat?
It eats beetles, cockroaches, snails, millipedes, and sometimes small lizards and frogs that trip over its silk lines.
For real!Photo of Sydney funnel-web spider
Picture by Sputniktilt. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Sydney funnel-web spider about 5 cm long (2 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 8 grains of rice in a rowas long as 1.5 toy building bricks in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 1.3 seconds

How big is Sydney funnel-web spider compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its name robustus means strong and sturdy.

2

It can survive up to 24 hours under water by trapping air bubbles in the hairs on its body.

3

In warm months the males go wandering to find females, and sometimes end up in gardens, houses or swimming pools.

4

It comes out at night, because the daytime is too dry and hot for it.

you asked

Most asked questions about Sydney funnel-web spider

?Where do Sydney funnel-web spiders live?

In eastern Australia around Sydney, in damp places under logs, rocks and leaves.

?How big is a Sydney funnel-web spider?

Its body is 1 to 5 centimetres long, and its legs are about 6 to 7 centimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Atrax robustus
Named by
Pickard-Cambridge, 1877
Group
Spiders
Family
Atracidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Atracidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Sydney funnel-web spider (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Sputniktilt. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

More from the same group: Spiders

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows