'Jacked up' spider shocks residents in Aussie city: 'Find a new home'
"I’ve zoomed every way I can and it’s the craziest arachnid I ever saw!"
A ‘jacked up’, ‘scary-looking’ spider hanging outside a home in Perth has left locals stunned – many advising the homeowner that it could be time to find a new house.
The resident of Baldivis, 46km south of Perth, spotted the “big brute” sitting in a web and posted a photo to a local community group, asking for help with identification.
He described it as “one of the biggest I’ve seen”.
The photo had some locals shocked at the size and shape of the spider, which appeared to have dark pointed legs and a massive abdomen.
“I’ve zoomed every way I can and it’s the craziest arachnid I ever saw… where does it begin and where does it end? Is that a sack on it?” one bewildered person wrote.
“Is it carrying its babies?” another questioned.
“That spider is jacked! Only suggestion is to grab your valuables and find a new home,” one joked, while another advised the man to “just accept that spider owns your house now and you’re paying it rent to stay there”.
Other viewers had a crack at identifying the species.
“Hard to tell, but potentially a black house spider,” one suggested.
“I reckon it’s a pregnant redback,” another said, while others thought it was a male redback because they don’t have the signature red markings.
“Looks like a redback to me, it’s the pointy legs of a redback. Ordinary house spiders have fat legs,” one woman said.
“Looks like it could be part of the orb spider family,” one person said – and they were spot on.
Expert confirms identity of ‘crazy’ spider
Arachnologist Dr Volker Framenau from Murdoch University said the spider was likely the common garden orb-weaver Hortophora biapicata.
“These spiders are fairly common this time of the year,” he told Yahoo News.
”The image is not the best for identification, but this is really the only large orb-weaver spider of that appearance around at this time of the year in Perth. This would be more different in the eastern states, where a fair more species in the genus Hortophora occur.”
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