Redback Spider - female (Latrodectus hasselti)
With thin black legs and a pea-shaped abdomen, the redback spider with its brig\ht red stripe would have been about 40 mm long (leg span). Spotted at night, it had descended to the centre of its web which was a tangle of silk stretching from its retreat in a crack between the bricks and the paved ground below. The flash from the camera made it dart back up the web, where I could see discarded remnants of insects.
The redback spider is a species of venomous spider indigenous to Australia. It is a member of the cosmopolitan genus "Latrodectus", the widow spiders. The adult female is easily recognised by her spherical black body with a prominent red stripe on the upper side of her abdomen and an hourglass-shaped red/orange streak on the underside.
