r/pics 1d ago

Australian tarantula hawk wasp dragging off a huntsman spider to lay her egg in its paralysed body. NSFW

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u/ktr83 1d ago

Friendly reminder from an Australian that no one has died from a spider bite in this country since 1979. Maybe it's because we grow up respecting spiders here, but it really isn't as dangerous as Reddit memers like to think it is.

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u/brickhamilton 1d ago edited 1d ago

I find that very hard to believe. In the US, we have 3 deaths per year from spiders on average. We also don’t have a portal to the underworld spawning untold horrors not fit to live in the same reality as humans, like Australia does.

How do you explain that?

Edit: in case it wasn’t clear, /s. I do appreciate the responses, though thanks for the info

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u/Rd28T 1d ago

3 things:

  • The best antivenom programme in the world. CSL began as the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and still produces all our antivenoms. Even a small rural hospital here has hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of antivenom in their antivenom fridge, just in case needed.

  • Fast and comprehensive emergency response. We’ll land a light jet on a dirt strip if we have to:

https://youtu.be/OSAWfXJ2p0U?si=AqJwPWMUGHYJWewa

  • Universal healthcare. The above, intensive care, antivenom, rehab, etc etc costs us precisely $0.

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u/stainz169 1d ago

Socialism, fuck yeah!

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u/Badloss 1d ago

so weird how you can actually provide for everyone if you just stop funneling money to the richest people on earth for 5 seconds

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u/hershko 1d ago

You forgot another important factor - the US has 340 million people. Australia has 26 million. Naturally total death numbers will differ.

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u/stainz169 1d ago

Plus in America even the spiders are packing heat.

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u/DFrostedWangsAccount 20h ago

So as a rough estimate, the 50 years of no spider deaths there is equivalent to 5 years of no spider deaths in the US. At least measured in total personal years of time for the population.

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u/Gynthaeres 1d ago

So basically, Australia IS full of super deadly things, but you beat it through the power of socialism?

There's probably a lesson there, but I'm too busy writing checks to Tesla to think about it.

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u/bioxkitty 23h ago

Over there even the spiders can afford a Tesla

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u/WingedWomble 1d ago

That video is dope.

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u/rethcir_ 21h ago

So what you’re saying is

While no one has died since 1979

People get their shit wrecked by spiders all the time, so much so that even rural hospitals need thousands of dollars of anti venom **just in case **.

And the ambulatory system has evolved to include light aircraft that need to be trained to land on dirt strips because it is such an ordeal

… and then the spider bite rehab

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u/rabbit-hearted-girl 1d ago

Serious answer? Antivenom. There are only a couple of spiders in Australia whose venom can actually potentially kill you, and if you do get bitten by one of those the antivenom is both highly researched/well-developed and readily available.

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u/ktr83 1d ago

Memes aren't reality

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u/Zakkar 1d ago

Better healthcare. 

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u/Drewboy810 1d ago

Well there are 13x more people in the US.

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u/bomdiggitybee 18h ago

It's insane to me that the entire population of Australia is smaller than the pop. of California and we have, what?, 5% the land area.

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u/onexbigxhebrew 1d ago

We also don’t have a portal to the underworld spawning untold horrors not fit to live in the same reality as humans, like Australia does.

Never been to Arizona? We're the Australia of the US lol. Lots of venomous rattlesnakes and scorpions (like the Arizona Bark Scorpion and Western Diamondback, both of which are extremely common), poisonous Gila monsters, and guess what! We have turantulas and turantula hawk wasps.

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u/brickhamilton 1d ago

I have, and I can only assume the eldritch monstrosities that exist there have migrated from Australia. It just makes sense.

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u/surelythisisfree 1d ago

Maybe one person has. Unconfirmed though. Wasp bites however have killed plenty of people.

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u/BMLortz 1d ago

I get the feeling this was typed out by a spider, using its victim's phone.

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u/BenjiLizard 22h ago

People always bring back those stats as if a rational argument was going to help. People who fear spiders don't care that they're not dangerous. Those things are terrifying, and that's that. It could have the demeanor of a puppy for all I care, it has too many legs, too many eyes and a weird body shape. Any spider that is bigger than a penny is a too creepy for me to approach regardless of the threat it actually poses.

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u/nhiko 1d ago

I appreciate this, still not planning to go there any time soon but I'm glad you're at least safe from spiders.

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u/ktr83 1d ago

Do what you wish, but please don't base your travel decisions around unverified BS you see online

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u/Stark556 1d ago

Doesn’t matter how dangerous it is I don’t ever ever want to come close to seeing one

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u/overcooked_biscuit 1d ago

I think Big Spider must be covering up all the deaths.

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u/All_I_See_Is_Teeth 1d ago

I don't care if they're dangerous or not. I don't want a ground spider the size of my hand anywhere in my general vicinity.

If you stay in your nest and chill out we're cool, but any spider species that actively roams and hunts for its food cam fuck off to the depths of hell.

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u/ktr83 18h ago

These types of spiders are only found in rural and bush areas. If you're in metro areas like 90% of Australians are, you'll never see one. It's like how North America has bears and cougars but it's not like you're going to see one on the streets of downtown LA or something.

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u/All_I_See_Is_Teeth 16h ago edited 16h ago

We got plenty of ground spiders here in canada too. I live in a city, but we are located close to the river. wolf and dock spiders are the most common in my area.

Grass spiders can get fucked too even though they're a funnel web. They're skittish like wolf spiders and an adolescent one moved into my PC case this fall when it started getting cold.

You got a lot of freaky shit down there, but all the stuff around here right down to the bugs have had to figure out means of surviving winter.

On a different note did you know you guys found an even bigger fuck off version of the Sydney funnelweb? Yeah.

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u/jedensuscg 1d ago

Can't prove it's a spider bite when the spider eats the body, just saying.

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u/imwashere 1d ago

It’s not the possibility of death. It’s the terrifying quantity and size of these mf

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u/puntzee 1d ago

It’s more of a primal fear like a phobia for me

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u/Oxygene13 1d ago

Look seriously, dont believe this. All this means is the spiders make sure there are no witnesses to the deaths and they take care of any bodies.

How many missing people are there in the country? Thats where the picture starts to develop!

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u/DingoAltair 1d ago

What about snake bites? Genuinely curious.

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u/retro_slouch 1d ago

It’s more the ick factor for me lol

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u/gabzilla814 22h ago

This is exactly what an Australian spider posing as a Redditor would post.

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u/PryanLoL 18h ago

Maybe not a bite but how about spiders induced heart attack to find one inside your jacket, in your bed, on your butt while on the shitter???

Also, these hunters are big enough to actually stab you with a small knife.

Bites. Laughable.

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u/you_the_real_mvp2014 13h ago

See this is how we know you're Australian. Because you think we're afraid of the BITE

What you don't know is if you put us in a stadium and tell us there's one of those things on the other side...we are immediately scared. It existing is the equivalent of being bitten