Spidentify allows users to browse over 250 native spiders by region, spider family and habitat. There’s also a colour-coded danger rating (very important!)
It’s the brainchild by photographer Alan Henderson, who worked on Melbourne Museum’s Bugs Alive! Exhibition, and his daughter Caitlin, from Melbourne’s Minibeast Wildlife which commissioned the app.
The pair spent six days tracking down our most popular arachnids from Melbourne to northern Queensland – though it didn’t always go to plan.
“At one point I was trying to get a Huntsman to stay put in the bucket, and it got away, ran up Dad’s shirt and hid in his armpit. I spent a while apologising for that one,” Caitlin says (I can feel my skin crawling even as I write this).
Mr Henderson says the app should counteract some of the misinformation out there about native spiders – including that they will chase us down and attack us (I know plenty of people who will testify the opposite – myself included).
It’s true there have been no deaths in Australia from spider venom since 1979 after the Sydney funnel-web spider anti-venom was introduced in the 1980s.
And who knows? The app may come in handy. Next time, you’re in the shed and a spider lands on your arm, you’ll know exactly what’s trying to kill you.
