Arachnophobic? Don't read this.

[oldbrownhat]

Heh, heh, heh... Now that I have your attention...

The poison paradox: How Australia's deadliest animals save lives​

"Sydney funnel-webs are arguably the most deadly spider in the world," Emma [Teni] says matter-of-factly.
A marine biologist by training, Emma never expected to spend her days milking spiders. In fact, she started off working with seals.
But now she wouldn't have it any other way...

The public antivenom programme saving lives in a place where, the joke goes, everything wants to kill you.

With a pair of bright pink tweezers in hand, Emma Teni is delicately wrestling a large and leggy spider in a small plastic pot.

"He's posing," the spider-keeper jests as it rears up on its back legs. It is exactly what she's trying to achieve - that way she can suck the venom from its fangs using a small pipette.

Emma works from a tiny office known as the spider milking room. On a typical day, she milks - or extracts the venom from - 80 of these Sydney funnel-web spiders...

 

[mckenney99]

Her job really sucks.

 

[boykinlp]

Running into a spiderweb at the wrong time can cause me to scream like a little girl!
Larry

 

[The Last Standing Knight]

We got briefed aboard ship on these blasted things before we went into Sydney back in 87.
Nasty critters to put it mildly. Large, aggressive, fast and deadly. Liked to live in houses and apartments. More likely to charge than retreat when confronted.

 

[s&wchad]

 

[oldbrownhat]

We got briefed aboard ship on these blasted things before we went into Sydney back in 87.
Nasty critters to put it mildly. Large, aggressive, fast and deadly. Liked to live in houses and apartments. More likely to charge than retreat when confronted.

My gf grew up in Oz "where everything tries to kill you" and said she was given due warning about them as kid.

To quote Bill Jordan, there's "no second place winner" in a showdown with a funnel web.