I looked at my spider chart but I couldn't work out what it was. After some research on the net, I soon found out to my horror that my new little house guest was in fact a Blue Mountains Funnel Web Spider - one of the most deadest spiders in the world, apparently. Lucky me....
We had just had a few days of rain. It must have been washed out of its hole or rock and gone walkabout looking for some lady spiders, and got itself stuck in another spider's web. What had me puzzled to what sort of spider it was, was the fact that it was a lot smaller than what I thought a Funnel Web would be. This male is only 18mm long - the Sydney Funnel Web spiders are a lot bigger, and I only ever see them in museums.
This little beastie was found only about 5 metres away in the backyard where my 4 year old son plays.
Here are some useful links to information about Australian spiders - definitely not for arachniphobics!
http://www.questacon.com.au/html/assets/pdf/ea_sitting_target.pdf
http://www.termite.com.au/spider-identification.html
