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Panasonic G9 Mark II PRO & OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro 2:1 IS PRO + Godox V860 III O + Diffuser

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Had to relocate the handsome fella because my partner is HEAVILY arachnophobic but I put him in some nearby foliage :)

I thought people might like a read into this subjects complexities and why there is often so much confusion, including some of the traps people fall into when debating the topic.

I personally have been researching and studying medically significant spiders for over 20 years. I would like to thank Dr Volker Herzig and Richard Vetter for their review and input into this also. (This was originally a video transcript so sources aren't provided in the text, however if anyone would like any of the source papers let me know and I'll be happy to provide them.)

  'What is the world's most venomous spider?'

  It's a question I'm asked often, and I see many videos or comments online all confidently giving answers that contradict each other.  The problem is that people want a simple answer to a complex question.  

I'm going to explain why there appears to be so much confusion on the subject.  

People also ask, "What spider is the most dangerous?", which is slightly different and takes into consideration things like the temperament of spiders, their likelihood of biting, and their proximity to people. But, we'll keep it simple and look at the relative dangers of each spider if they were to bite you.  

  So, "What is the most venomous spider?"

  The first issue we encounter is the question "What is the most venomous spider?" doesn’t have a set meaning.

  We could use some literal dictionary definitions of 'venomous', i.e., "capable of injecting venom by means of a bite or sting."  Then the question posed is, "What spider is the most capable of injecting venom?". There are thousands of spiders equally capable of injecting venom, but I know that isn't what people are asking.  

What people usually mean is either:

1. "Which spider has the most potent venom?" or
2. "Which spider has the most harmful bite?"

These questions are subtly different. The first looks at which animal's venom is the most potent drop for drop. The second not only looks at the venom's potency, but also considers the amount. Some animals have a weaker venom, but inject more of it, making bites more harmful as a whole.  

If we were to compare using the latter, what amount do we use? Do we take the average amount an adult typically injects per wet bite?  Do we use the maximum an adult could hypothetically inject, i.e., its maximum yield (even though they never realistically use this much)? Or, If we want to work out an average across all bites, then we'll need to include dry bites (bites that contain no venom). Dry bites make up a significant portion of the defensive bites from some species more so than others, and including these will significantly alter your figures.  You also face further complications with this method, such as varying toxicity levels and yields between the sexes.  

So, maybe venom potency drop for drop is the best way?  

This brings us to LD50s.  

An LD50 or 'lethal dose 50', is essentially the amount of venom required to kill 50% of the animals in a test group. For example, you have 100 mice, and inject each of them with 1 mg of venom. If at that dose 50 of the mice die while 50 live, 1mg is your LD50.  If at 1mg more than 50 die, you would lower the dose and test again. If less than 50 die, you would increase the dose and so on. This process continues until you find the amount that kills exactly 50%. (In reality labs often won't reach exactly 50%. They may calculate an LD50 based on results at higher or lower doses)

  The reason we use 50% is that some animals in a group will naturally have a higher tolerance, and some will naturally have a lower tolerance to the venom. At the amount where 50% die, this is obviously a fair representation of the average amount required to kill a member of that species.  The lower the dose, the more potent the venom.   

To make this figure easily comparable against other results often involving different test subjects, we round it up or down and express it in milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight. If 1mg was the dose where 50% of our mice died, and each mouse weighed 20 grams; with 1,000 grams in a kilogram, we multiply that 1mg by 50 to give us a standardised LD50 of 50mg per kg.    

So far, so good... However, there is no single LD50 for each target species the venom is tested on. This figure varies greatly depending on the route of administration. There are numerous ways venom can be administered: subcutaneously (below the epidermis), intravenously (directly into a vein), intramuscularly (into muscle tissue), intradermally (just below the dermis or upper layers of skin), intraperitoneally (into the peritoneal cavity where your organs are), and intracerebroventricularly (into the cerebral ventricles, essentially directly into the brain, bypassing the blood-brain barrier).   

This is something many online videos or articles fail to recognise. I often see the subcutaneous LD50 results from one species being compared with the intracerebroventricular LD50 of another. Comparing the lethality rate of two neurotoxic substances where one has been administered under the skin and the other has been injected directly into the brain, isn’t going to give you an accurate representation of their relative potency. This is like comparing the lethality of bullets by shooting 10 people in the head with a 9mm, 10 in the foot with a .50 caliber machine gun, then declaring that 9mm bullets are more dangerous because more people died when they were shot with them.  

Aside from the differing methods of administration, there is also a huge difference in the results depending on which animal is being used as a test subject. Spider venoms are extremely complex substances comprised of hundreds of individual components which all act on different chemical processes in a victim’s body. Different animals have different physiological processes. Some parts of a spider’s venom might significantly disrupt the processes in one animal and not the next. Venoms affect different animals in different ways, and the dose required to kill individual species varies. There is no universal "one size fits all." Asking "What venom is the most toxic?" is a bit like asking a doctor "Which medicine is the best?". Without setting any criteria, it's meaningless.  

I've always assumed that when people ask me, 'What is the most venomous spider?' they are referring to its effects on humans. Determining the most harmful or toxic spider towards one animal is challenging enough. Anyone who claims to know the individual answer for every mammal, bird, fish, reptile, amphibian and arthropod on Earth, and has calculated a definitive answer overall, is lying.

  Most LD50 studies use adult mice. Mice are mammals like us and have many similar biological processes. However, we are not mice. While there are similarities, our physiology is ultimately different from that of a mouse. This animal is really an arbitrary creature we frequently test venoms on because aside from their similarities to us, they’re small, easy to breed, and relatively easy to care for in a lab. Yes, mice can give an indication of the potential harms of a substance, but they cannot be used as a direct like-for-like replacement to show exactly how something will affect us.  

An excellent example of this is to compare the LD50 of two spiders often towards the top of many "most venomous" lists: the Sydney funnel-web (Atrax robustus) and the Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria nigriventer).  

The subcutaneous LD50 of Phoneutria venom when tested on adult mice is consistently shown to be around 0.7 mg/kg. That’s 0.7 mg of venom needed to kill a kilogram of mice.  This same test from a study using Atrax venom gave a result of around 11.3 mg/kg for the male spider’s venom and 80 mg/kg for the female’s. If we use mice as the benchmark, then Brazilian wandering spider venom would be considered between 16 and 114 times more toxic than a Sydney funnel-webs.  

We know this isn’t an accurate reflection of their toxicity towards us because:

1. They wouldn’t pose a danger to us if this figure translated to humans, and
2. Funnel-web LD50 studies have been done on macaques (which are primates much more closely related to us than mice are), and the results were drastically different.

The subcutaneous LD50 of male funnel-web venom when tested on these animals was below 0.2 mg/kg. Sydney funnel-web venom is over 56 times more harmful to a monkey than it is to a mouse.  

It's important to note there have never been any LD50 studies done on primates using wandering spider venom, so we are unable to directly compare the two.  

Sometimes, even when the comparisons appear fair, i.e., both done on mice, both using the same method, there are still incomparable figures published side by side.  

0.16 mg/kg is often used in tables as the subcutaneous LD50 for Sydney funnel-web venom in mice.  However, when you read the source material, you see this was the LD50 for a single isolated component of funnel-web venom, Robustoxin, not the whole venom, and only when tested on mice less than 2 days old.  While not a direct equivalence; to illustrate this, imagine comparing the strength of different alcoholic drinks: wine, vodka, whisky, etc.  You find that beer is the strongest, but fail to mention that unlike the other drinks, only the ethanol in beer was used while conducting your study. Not only this, but while all other drinks were given to adults, your pure 'beer ethanol' was given to a baby.  

The same study found the crude, or 'whole' venom was 10 times less effective on these same baby mice, with an LD50 of 1.5 mg/kg. This figure then dramatically increased as soon as they left this early stage in their life.  

Even with total consistency across all tests, trying to obtain a single figure to use in comparisons is tricky. Aside from the natural fluctuation between individual specimens, studies show that venom composition and potency varies within a species depending on the region. Considering the large range of some of these spiders, results will differ significantly depending on where your specimens were collected.  This is also true for test subjects, with different populations of the same species varying in their resistance to venoms. One supplier sells 46 different strains of mice each with differing results.  

In the late 20th century two experiments were completed by two separate labs on adult mice. Both used the same method, and both used the same species of wandering spider venom. One lab found an intravenous LD50 of 0.57mg/kg, while the other had a result of 0.34mg/kg. That's a 70% increase in the venoms apparent potency, for what should on paper be the same result. Different populations of both spider and test subject, along with tiny differences in how the same test was carried out, had a significant impact on the result.    

As a side note, due to the increasing concern around the ethics of killing large numbers of animals in a lab, a lot of these studies are now quite old. This can cause complications when outdated taxonomic names are published alongside results. For example, with Brazilian Wandering spiders, I often see 'Phoneutria fera' linked with mice LD50 results. In reality, the spiders involved in these tests were either Phoneutria nigriventer or Phoneutria keyserlingi.  At the time, these three spiders were not taxonomically separated (recognised as separate species). As 'fera' is the type species for the genus, the other two were lumped together under this name.  Since they have been separated, it's clear fera could never have been involved. The specimens used in these studies were collected around the Butantan institute in São Paulo, where only nigriventer and keyserlingi are found. feras range starts about a thousand miles north.  There has never been any mammalian LD50 studies done using Phoneutria fera venom. Since these revisions, the authors have corrected this, however it appears to have gone largely unnoticed.   

LD50 results also sometimes conflict with other data we can use to try and determine the most harmful bite to humans, even within members of the same genus. The highest mortality rate from South American recluse spider bites is reported in an area where Chilean recluse spiders (Loxosceleslaeta) are most prevalent, but when looking at mice LD50 results, this species had a significantly less effective venom than its sister species, the Brazilian brown recluse (Loxoscelesintermedia).  The intraperitoneal LD50 for mice using Chilean recluse venom was 1.45 mg/kg, while Brazilian brown recluse venom was three times more effective at 0.48 mg/kg.  

This leads on to the next factor we need to consider when looking at the potential harms of a spider bite: where people are bitten.  Some venoms are much more adept at making their way through tissue than others. Recluse spider venom is an excellent example of this. Due to its cytotoxic nature, the venom is efficient at breaking down cells and making its way through the body. A pure neurotoxin, no matter how potent, would be far less efficient if injected into a fatty part of the body than if injected directly into or close to the bloodstream. It would be absorbed too slowly, giving the body an opportunity to break it down before it can cause harm. Spider venoms vary in this capacity, and this is reflected in LD50 results. Some have a more consistent figure when compared across a range of methods, while others show more significant differences depending on the route of administration. The same dose of venom from the same bite may be far more dangerous in one area than it would another.  If we want to compare, where do we choose as a standard bite location? The hand? The thigh? The soft tissue on the inside of the wrist?  Different areas may significantly hinder or benefit the efficiency of some venoms and not others.  

There is another way of looking at the potential lethality of spider bites towards humans: the number of bites recorded against the number of deaths.  This data has its own complications. Brazilian wandering spiders have a proven low LD50 when tested across a broad range of animals. They have a potent venom, a high venom yield, and the capacity to give a relatively deep bite. South American recluse spiders on the other hand, while they do have a relatively low LD50, also have small fangs and a low venom yield.  These spiders only have the capacity to store around 0.06 mg of venom (compared to wandering spiders, which on average yield about 20 times that amount). Yet, recent figures show South American recluse spiders cause more deaths per bite than wandering spiders do. So why is this? Do they inject venom in more bites? Would their LD50, if tested on humans, be lower? Is their venom more efficient at spreading from the areas people are typically bitten?  These may all be legitimate reasons, but there are other, more human factors to consider.  

Firstly, a victim's inclination to seek early medical treatment. Wandering spiders are large spiders that give a painful bite. You know if you've been bitten by one, and due to the immediate pain, victims may be more inclined to attend hospital sooner. Loxosceles bites on the other hand make far less of an initial impact, often going ignored, or with victims not recognising symptoms until it's too late.  

Secondly, due to the nature of this spider's toxin, the current antivenom isn't as effective as it is for other spiders. Even with medical treatment, there remains a higher likelihood of adverse outcomes. Having little data on the death rate for many significant species prior to the development of antivenom makes comparing what their mortality rate would be without it quite challenging. Antivenom is given as a precaution to help people who start displaying more serious symptoms, but this doesn't necessarily mean they would have died without it.  

Thirdly, data is only as good as what's recorded. This brings me onto a recent poll I conducted.  A lot of these studies rely on people attending hospitals to have their bite recorded. Some people go as a precaution as soon as a bite occurs, but others won't attend unless they develop symptoms and feel they need it. 

I asked people this question using a black widow bite as an example. 70% said they would go straight away, while 30% said they would only go if they felt it was necessary.  This poll was far from a scientific study, but it gives an indication that a large number of asymptomatic or mild bites likely go unreported. This percentage will vary depending on the type of spider and area the study was conducted, disproportionately effecting statistics. Misidentification is also common in these data sets, which usually rely on medical staff or the public to correctly identify spiders. On top of this, some studies try and concentrate on the results from a specific species, while others group a whole genus together, including the potentially less harmful members. 

  The animals we often want to compare come from different parts of the world, with studies being done by different institutions in different continents. There's no global organization governing results to ensure they're counted consistently.  

Maybe we can look at the number of serious bites or bites that required antivenom as an indicator? We encounter similar issues here. Different studies include different groups of people, and different institutions grade bite severity differently.  Some articles quote severe symptoms from black widow envenomation as high as 54%, but when you read the source, that 54% was within a group of people that had been referred to a specialist toxicology unit. Of course there's going to be a disproportionately high number of patients with severe symptoms in there; that's why they're in there.  This is like stating 80% of people have life-threatening symptoms after contracting COVID, but failing to mention that figure was from a study of patients in the intensive care unit on a COVID ward.   

On the contrary, another study showed severe reactions to black widow bites in the US as low as 0.5%. This figure, taken from poison control centers, includes a large number of 'suspected exposures'. This includes people who phoned in believing they had been bitten. I've seen the identification skills of most people, and at best it's poor. Aswell as cases of misidentification, add to this the number of people who developed a rash or pimple and diagnosed themselves as being bitten by a black widow, and I can't imagine this figure is entirely accurate either.  If we look at this same study and only count those who attended a medical facility, then of those 830, 13 had major effects. Instead of 0.5%, this now gives us a severe envenomation rate of 1.5%.  As previously noted, not everyone who was actually bitten will have attended, so the true percentage of severe envenomation is likely to sit somewhere between the two.  

I had a look at the Wikipedia page for some of the spiders I've mentioned to see what the current misinformation was on there. On the Chilean recluse page, I came across this: "Studies showed an 18% mortality rate for bites from this species." I was surprised to find this figure was also used in other more reputable articles. That is incredibly high. But if you read the source material, that 18% was the number of people who went on to die after suffering kidney failure as a result of loxoscelism. Of the total number of people bitten by South American recluse spiders, loxoscelism occurs in a small number of people. Within that small group, those who suffer kidney failure is smaller still (about a third). It was the number of people who went on to die in this group that was 18%. So, that mortality rate is from a small group within a small group within a large group of the total number of people bitten. The overall mortality rate from Chilean recluse bites is not 18%.

  It doesn't help that papers and studies are published in various languages, with a lot of information being lost in translation.  

I wanted to conclude with an attempt to give some sort of answer to the original question.  So, maybe I can attempt to answer this: As a human, with no medical intervention available, what species would I personally least like to be bitten by in parts of the body humans are commonly bitten?  

Well, in the few published studies we do have, 17% of Sydney funnel-web bites were reported as being severe, with antivenom required between 10% and 20% of the time. The pool of data is fairly small however, and the authors themselves acknowledge these results are far from conclusive.  Due to the small geographic range of this spider, the number of bites is significantly lower than other species mentioned. There aren’t any more comprehensive studies currently available, and in the absence of any conflicting data, these are the best figures we have. We can use the average number of bites per year for this species to approximate the mortality rate without antivenom. Over the 50 years prior to its development, there were 13 recorded deaths. Today, the average number of bites is around 30 to 40 per year. Adjusting this slightly to account for the lower population in the region at the time, we can approximate a mortality rate of around 1%. While we don't have the primate LD50 data from other species, I can say that 0.2mg/kg is definitely low. Coupling that with their propensity to give wet bites and the fact they're fairly large spiders with a relatively large yield, means the male Sydney funnel-web is a fair contender to top the list. *I would like to point out this is only true for the male of the species, whose venom is shown to be significantly more harmful than the female's.  

With that being said, this contender for the number one spot is only when considering an average bite. If all spiders were instructed to give me the worst they were capable of inflicting, the fact some female wandering spiders have a recorded yield as high as 8mg, I really wouldn't fancy that. That's about eight times the maximum yield of a male funnel-web. While we don’t have any LD50 studies on primates using wandering spider venom, we do have those results from mice, and while its unknown exactly to what extent, humans are shown to be more sensitive to wandering spider venom than mice.  We can attempt to use these results from mice as a conservative estimate when comparing a potential 'worst case' bite from Phoneutria against Atrax's known figures. When using this conservative estimate, we can calculate a full dose bite from a wandering spider does have the potential to inflict more harm than any funnel-web could.  

In reality, they rarely inject anywhere near this much, and a high number of dry bites from this genus heavily dilutes figures when looking at bite severity and the requirement for antivenom. Antivenom for this genus is consistently shown to be required in around 2.5% of reported cases, while severe bites sit at around 0.5%.

Latrodectus species, which includes Widow and Red back spiders, are quite difficult to place due to such varying statistics and LD50 results. While they do commonly give wet bites, their low venom yield puts them below wandering spiders for potential maximum harm, and the low incidence of serious bites, coupled with a lower requirement for antivenom, puts them below the funnel web in terms of realistic harm.  The mortality rate prior to antivenom is cited in some articles as being between 5% and 10%. However, this data comes from old hospital surveys and the original author acknowledges this is likely an overestimation. Unlike some of the Funnel-web data, we also have more comprehensive studies available which contradict these figures. Various studies on bite severity today show that severe envenomation from this genus sits between about 1% and 2%. No matter how you grade bite severity, I would like to think that dying would always be considered a fairly serious symptom. A historic death rate of 5% to 10% when figures today show the total number of serious bites makes up less than 2%, isn't consistent. This previous mortality rate is therefore likely from a small number of more serious reports at the time, not the total number of incidence. We do have another figure from the 1950s, not long after the development of early antivenom when healthcare facilities were not what they are today, which recorded 63 deaths in the USA between 1950 and 1959. Using an approximate figure of 1,700 bites per year adjusted for the US population at the time, gives a rough mortality rate of around 0.4%. Although we don't have an accurate figure for the number of deaths without antivenom, the fact that the approximate funnel web mortality rate is higher than the total rate of severe envenomation reported in many Latrodectus studies, means an average bite from a funnel web is likely more dangerous.  

Finally, to throw a spanner in the works, I'm going to explain why the spider you might LEAST want to be bitten by is actually a spider that's never been recorded as killing anyone.

Now, why with all the recorded deaths from the other spiders should you ever be more worried about a bite from a spider that has apparently never killed anyone? Most videos or articles exclude them from their lists for that exact reason.

The notorious Sydney funnel-web spider, Atrax robustus, gets all the attention in the funnel web world. As mentioned they're believed responsible for all 13 funnel web deaths, and that 2005 study documented a severe or life threatening envenomation rate of 17%, which is much higher than nearly all other medically significant spiders.

However, in this same study, the severe or life threatening envenomation rate from the Northern tree dwelling funnel web was 63%, of the 8 recorded bites in the study, 5 were clinically severe. The Southern tree dwelling funnel web (Hadronyche cerberea) was even higher at 75%. Of 4 bites, 3 of them resulted in severe or life threatening symptoms. Now I admit the data is very limited, but from what we do have, the chance of a life threatening envenomation from one of these spiders is potentially four and a half times that of the Sydney funnel web...and currently the highest recorded of any spider on earth.

So, why has only the Sydney funnel web been recorded as killing people? That doesn't seem to make sense. Let's look at some potential reasons... Maybe tree dwelling funnel web bites can be severe, but not AS severe as the Sydney funnel webs? This isn't the case however, as the symptoms from severe bites from any of these spiders are clinically indistinguishable.

Instead, and the more likely reason, is that the Sydney funnel web shares its habitat with about 4 million people. Bites are far more common, but also, when you look at deaths from this spider, the majority of them are small children. Due to their small mass and developing immune systems, children are one of the groups most at risk from harmful spider bites.

When looking for a mate, the male Sydney funnel web, which also happens to be the most dangerous of the species, often wanders into homes, gardens, school grounds and other areas that children are likely to be. Often playing and unsupervised in these environments, there is a high potential for accidents with children to occur. The Sydney funnel web shares its habitat with the very demographic of people it is most likely to kill.

The tree dwelling funnel webs on the other hand are usually found in remote locations, in national parks, up trees. While the southern tree dwelling funnel web can be found in some areas humans live, they are far less common. Due to recent urban sprawl, this is even more true when looking at the period prior to the development of antivenom when all recorded funnel web deaths occurred. The People that most commonly frequent the tree dwelling funnel webs habitat are hikers, backpackers and tour groups. If children are present, they'll usually be supervised with appropriate footwear, and unless they're allowed to climb the trees, they won't be where these spiders are commonly found.

Bites from the tree dwelling funnel webs are much rarer, with bites to children rarer still.

So, why hasn't there been any deaths at ALL? It's important again to remember that even as a ground dwelling species, frequenting areas where lots of people (especially children) are, and with far more bites, the number of recorded deaths for the Sydney funnel web over 50 years prior to the development of antivenom, is still only 13. That was about 1 death every 4 years from hundreds of bites. As above, even adjusting for the lower population in the region at the time, this translates to a fatality rate of less than 1%.

The number of bites from the tree dwelling species is so low, that it's likely a case of statistics. It may be that there weren't enough recorded in the period prior to antivenom for a death to have statistically occurred. Add to this the fact that unlike the Sydney funnel web, a disproportionate number of healthy adults frequent the habitat these spiders are found, and this may further explain why no deaths were reported. There is also the possibility that deaths have occurred, but due to the remote locations, they weren't attributed to this spider or accurately recorded. There is one suspected death from the northern tree dwelling funnel web, but as it wasn't confirmed it's not included in any official data.

So, why do these spiders cause a higher percentage of severe bites? Is their venom more toxic to humans, or do they just inject more of it in a larger portion of bites?

The answer is, we don't know.

It's a misconception that we know the Sydney funnel web has the most harmful venom to humans. While we do know Sydney funnel web venom contains robustoxin, which is what makes them so dangerous to primates, and yes the tree dwelling species lack this specific toxin, there is nothing to suggest the tree dwellers haven't evolved their own analogue of this toxin, a similar toxin, or a combination of toxins that could make their venom more harmful to us.

Concluding that tree dwelling funnel web venom must be less harmful than Sydney funnel web venom simply because it lacks robustoxin, is like an alien species studying a hand gun, finding the dangerous component to be a 9mm bullet, looking specifically for a 9mm bullet in a .50 calibre machine gun, Not finding one, then declaring that machine guns can't be as dangerous. Well no, because they have their OWN lethal component.

We simply do not know drop for drop which of these spiders has the most toxic venom to primates. I specifically asked Volker if we could use what we do know to hazard a guess, and the short answer is no.

While the potentially lethal components of tree dwelling funnel webs aren't well studied, what we do know is their venom is extremely complex. The studies we do have certainly don't contradict the documented high percentage of severe bites.

This rings particularly true for the Southern Tree dwelling funnel web (Hadronyche cerberea). The reason for this species venom complexity may be due to evolutionary pressure. Sydney funnel webs are terrestrial/ ground based spiders, and their venom is likely to have evolved to deal with ground based predators and prey. The northern tree dwelling funnel web on the other hand is often found high up trees, often over 100 feet from the ground. As such, their venom is likely to specialise in tackling arboreal creatures. The southern tree dwelling funnel web on the other hand usually resides anywhere from the base of a tree up to several metres from the ground. This may have lead to a need for their venom to be effective across a range of both arboreal and terrestrial animals.

Due to the similarities in these spiders venom, the antivenom for the Sydney funnel web can be used to neutralise the severe effects from the tree dwellers. As the Sydney funnel web is the spider commonly involved in accidents, the development of the antivenom concentrated on this species.

It's NOT true however that Sydney funnel web venom is used to make the antivenom as it's the 'most potent' so 'covers the weaker venoms from other funnel webs'. The Antibodies in antivenom don't know what specific toxins do or how harmful they are.... their job is to recognise a basic molecular structure, bind to it and neutralise it. As the hexatoxins from all of these spiders are similar in their structure, the antibodies are able to recognise and neutralise them. There is nothing to suggest an antivenom based on Hadronyche toxins wouldn't work just aswell the other way around.

As Sydney funnel web antivenom works well enough for all of these spiders, its well tested, and the spiders used to make it are the easiest to find, theres been no need to develop one specifically for the tree dwellers.

Since the antivenoms development in 1981, deaths are preventable for all funnel webs, and there hasn't been any recorded deaths since this date.

While the data we do have is far from conclusive.. seeing as severe symptoms from any of these spiders are clinically indistinguishable, but you potentially have a much higher chance of developing them from a tree dwelling funnel web, is the reason these spiders are currently my personal number one on the list of spiders you wouldn't want to be bitten by.

If we do look at being bitten today, with access to modern healthcare facilities, my answer may change again. If medical intervention was available, the South American recluse spiders are certainly of note. While antivenom is effective for combating the effects of more neurotoxic venoms such as those from the wandering spider, funnel web, and widow spider, it's less effective at combating some of the serious effects of recluse spider venom. Although it's difficult to be sure of their accuracy for reasons we've mentioned, mortality rates today indicate that since the development of antivenom, bites from these do pose the most significant health risk to humans. Aside from any risk of death, these spiders are also the most likely to leave me with long-lasting negative effects.    

Now there are other spiders I haven't mentioned such as the six-eyed sand spiders, and their inclusion may change things again. There just hasn't been enough research on this spiders venom and there isn't enough confirmed data available to use in any kind of meaningful comparison.  

It's important to remember that unless there is ever a comprehensive study done by one institute or laboratory covering all individual species under the same conditions, using a range of LD50 and bite severity tests with humans as test subjects (If that's what it takes, I'm fine not knowing!), then we will never know the exact figures required to accurately compare them. All we can do is use the various results we do have, coupled with educated guesses to fill in the gaps. When looking at these studies, it's just as important to consider what they don't tell us as it is to consider what they do.  

What I can say for certain is that in todays climate, no spider, even the most harmful, has anywhere near a certain chance of killing you. Children and the elderly are shown to be more at risk, but even so, if you're bitten by any of these spiders, it's important not to panic. Especially with modern healthcare facilities, there are far greater things to worry about.

To put all of this into perspective:

There have been no Sydney funnel-web deaths recorded in the 45 years since the development of antivenom.

While there have been a handful worldwide, no deaths from black widows have been recorded in the USA since the 1980s. 

A modern-day study published by the Brazilian government reported that out of 23,016 suspected wandering spider bites, only 11 people died. 

And of 36,409 suspected South American recluse spider bites, even with a less-than-perfect antivenom, there were still only 37 recorded fatalities. 

While online articles and scare stories usually concentrate on the most severe cases, it's important to remember that for every serious bite, there are many, many more that are moderate, mild, or simply have no effect at all.    

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They say wolf spider close up, can anyone confirm this is a Wolfie?

https://preview.redd.it/s01j74f1sd5e1.png?width=596&format=png&auto=webp&s=48fc585888d93c820c9c499cc304b185102d981e

Panasonic G9 Mark II PRO & OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro 2:1 IS PRO + Godox V860 III O + Diffuser

Follow me on flickr for True HD Quality of Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kietbotot

Panasonic G9 Mark II PRO & OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro 2:1 IS PRO + Godox V860 III O + Diffuser

Follow me on flickr for True HD Quality of Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kietbotot

Saw him chilling around, enjoying the warmth of indoors while it rains outside