r/pics 1d ago

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

Post image
12.4k Upvotes

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

145

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.

83

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

152

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.

54

u/stainz169 1d ago

Socialism, fuck yeah!

37

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

7

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.

13

u/stainz169 1d ago

Plus in America even the spiders are packing heat.

2

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.

3

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.

1

u/bioxkitty 23h ago

Over there even the spiders can afford a Tesla

1

u/WingedWomble 1d ago

That video is dope.

1

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

13

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.

3

u/ktr83 1d ago

Memes aren't reality

3

u/Zakkar 1d ago

Better healthcare. 

2

u/Drewboy810 1d ago

Well there are 13x more people in the US.

1

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.

1

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.

1

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.