White-Tailed Spider

Appearance

• They are generally dark red or grey, with dark orange-banded legs.
• Younger spiders can have two pairs of faint white spots on their back, with a white spot at the tip.
• Males can grow up to 12mm and females up to 18mm.

Life Cycle

• White-tailed spiders lay eggs in a disc-shaped egg sac, containing up to 90 eggs.
• They lay these sacs in dark and sheltered places, where the females guard the eggs until they hatch.

Habits

• Commonly found underneath bark, rocks, leaf litter and logs in the bush and around the home and garden.
• They eat other spiders, including daddy-long-legs, redbacks and black house spiders, and as such, are mostly active at night when their prey is out hunting.
• They move indoors during summer and autumn, where they look for shelter in nooks and crannies, searching for prey.