Stanwellia sp. (genus)

Trapdoor Spider at Giralang, ACT

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Identification history

Stanwellia sp. (genus)	14 Sep 2016	michaelb
Stanwellia sp. (genus)	14 Sep 2016	michaelb
Unidentified	14 Sep 2016	Denise

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User's notes

Found in tree fern I have had for many years. I was looking for reasons for declining health in the plant and pulled the funnel/ tunnel web away from the trunk exposing this spider. A large spider. It appears to have an 'eye ' type marking on the forehead. It has been re-ID as Misgolas Kirsch ( Brown Trapdoors & Tube Spiders ) id by Dr Raven. Queensland Museum and Stuart Harris. thank you

5 comments

AaronClausen3 wrote:

15 Sep 2016

What a cracker. Bird eating spider?

AaronClausen3 wrote:

15 Sep 2016

I think that scares me much more than snakes do. I am more and more comfortable with snakes, but that spider looks absolutely terrifying.

michaelb wrote:

15 Sep 2016

Thanks for these photos. I have downloaded the original photo, cropped it and added it back to aid in identification.

KimPullen wrote:

15 Sep 2016

This one may have come in with the tree fern, and may not be native to Canberra.

MichaelMulvaney wrote:

11 Apr 2017

I have changed the status of Stanwelia to non-local native on the basis of the following comment from Alison Rowell "By the way, I don’t think that the Stanwellia on a tree fern at Giralang should be listed as a local native species. Dave (Rowell) tells me that there is a Stanwellia in the ACT, but it doesn’t occur in town and it is soil-dweller. A different species comes in with the tree ferns that are sold for gardens. There is a thriving introduced population in tree ferns in the rainforest gully at the Botanic Gardens that presumably arrived that way, but the others Dave has seen here are one-offs on suburban tree ferns, a bit like the northern tree frogs that come in banana boxes."

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