The British-Butt Spider

Nicholas came run­ning up to the third floor yes­ter­day to pant, “Lorien! Where’s your cam­era?! There’s a spi­der with the British flag on its butt!”

That’s a state­ment that’ll get me run­ning down the stairs. After, of course, I ask whether or not it’s yet been killed. “Not until we’ve got pho­to­graphic evi­dence!”, Nicholas replied.

The spi­der didn’t quite have a Union Jack plas­tered across its bum, but I can see just what Nicholas was going on about:

Google says that it’s a type of Redback spi­der, which is related to the Brown and Black Widows. Highly ven­omous, with bites rang­ing from mild to death (with­out antivenom). Only the females bite, and based on size (inch? inch and a half?) this was def­i­nitely a female. The kids say that although this is the first of the British-Butt Spiders they’ve seen, we do have many, many of the more tra­di­tional single-stripe redbacks.

Charming!