Red-back+spiders

Red-backed spider bites are very poisonous. Red-backs have venom in their glands.

They live in gardens, old sheds, boots, shoes and gardening gloves left outside, and other quiet, dark places.

They build messy webs in cool, dark places. When they trap an insect, they bite it and then weave a web around it so it can't get away.

Red-backs have 8 legs, a head, a thorax (chest) and an abdomen (tummy). They are black all over, but females have a large red or orange stripe on their abdomens. Their bodies are only about 1cm long (about the size of a pea), but they are 3cm long if you count their legs. They mostly eat insects, but will eat crickets, small lizards or trapdoor spiders if they get caught in their webs.

They are a kind of black widow spider because sometimes the female eats the male after mating.

Source: [] Take Care, Poisonous Australian Animals by Dr Straun Sutherland and Susie Kennewell, 3rd Ed, Hyland Publishing, 1999, 9781864470680