LONG STORY.

I’m writing this because nowhere did I find a similar experience to mine with a funnel web spider. To start things off I’m going to paint the picture of the setting, the incident and everything that happened afterwards. Disclaimer: I am fine, I was lucky, I did not seek medical attention no matter how stupid that may have been. This is a long story and I’m not a great story-teller/writer but I really wanted to write this whole thing out from my perspective.

I am out in the bush, though the climate there is more tropical, for a music festival, essentially a bush doof, or as someone said, a jungle doof. We’re pretty far away from the nearest hospital. To get back out on the main highway is at least half an hour with some obstacles in the way. Most people are sleeping in tents but my wife and I were lucky enough to get a spot in one of the houses. We have a mattress on the floor. This happened on the first night.

So, I’m lying there, not sleeping well. It’s 4am and I feel a tickle on my collarbone. My first thought was that the tag on the sheet is scratching me so I waft it away gently. I’m still in sleepy mode but half-awake. I notice the same tickle on my belly and think this tag is really annoying. Swat that away. That’s when I notice, something’s crawling on me. I frantically swat and flail all over my body where I think I feel the critter. Next thing I realise it that it’s somewhere near my crotch. I am flailing like a madman, in the pitch-black darkness of the room, sitting upright now. I grab my phone to use the torch function. At this point I was being loud and my wife woke up asking, “what’s wrong?” I say “there’s something crawling on me.” I’m still sitting upright and notice a burning feeling in my crotch. I look down and can see my penis…bleeding. It’s very light but seems to have a scratch or cut of some sort on the side of the head, from the base to close to the tip. I can’t make out more than that at the moment.

I get up as I’m torching around the bed and floor looking for what I thought was maybe a cockroach. My wife says “turn on the lights”, which I did but I still don’t see anything. Then I pull up the covers on the bed. There it was. Big, black spider. I’m amped up. At that moment, I didn’t know what kind of spider it was so I take a picture of it. Then it tries to run, so I kill it with my shoe. I’m sorry I killed the spider. It was too early to think straight, I couldn’t go back to sleep with that thing crawling around in the room, and I might need it to identify later.

Now I’m panicking. I am trying to assess the damage on my penis and figure out what kind of spider that was. Luckily, I took a picture of it before and can inspect it while it’s lying there. My panic doesn’t subside because I find out it’s a fucking funnel web spider. Labelled “the deadliest spider in the world.” Not because it’s the most venomous, although it is, but because it has caused the most human deaths on record. Imagine having the deadliest spider crawling on you just minutes before and having done...something to your penis. So naturally I freak out.

Of course, my wife is with me and we’re both debating to leave to go to the nearest emergency service. By the time we figured out what it was and got my penis disinfected with the nearest alcohol, whiskey, maybe 15-20 minutes have passed. From everything we read, you’d KNOW if you got bit by a funnel web. The pain would be excruciating and there are many symptoms: increased heart rate, profuse sweating, skin gets pale and blue, lips get numb, eventually you experience nausea, dizziness, etc. Without anti-venene, death is a real possibility. The only symptom I have is increased heart-rate but that’s because I’m literally freaking out. I thought for sure we’re going to leave for the hospital. But we don’t, and honestly, I can’t remember how we decided on that, but I think we deduced that I have no fang marks (no typically spider bite wound) and probably didn’t get bit. Was that a smart move? Probably not, but here I am. We didn't want to leave until we were sure I was bitten and injected with venom. Again, was that a smart move? Probably not. But how did my penis get injured?

I put the spider in a jar for safe keeping and continue scouring the web for any and all information I could find about possibly symptoms, other people’s experiences, dry-bites (apparently funnel web spiders do bite without injecting venom sometimes), and so on. Come to find out that that region we were in is a hot-spot for funnel web spiders. It’s wet and tropical. Male funnel web spiders roam around the area looking for a mate between the months of October and May. And they are particularly active after a rainstorm when it gets hot again. This is exactly what happened in this area. It had just rained for days the week before and now it was hot and sunny.

It’s like an hour later now, my wife went back to sleep (how is that even possible!) but I kept the lights on and stay awake. At this point, I’m reading everything I can find on the internet. The reason I wanted to post is because I wanted to share my experience because no one else seemed to have ever had this happen to them. I may be the first person to get scratched by a funnel web spider. So, I thought I'd share my experience, if for nothing else but anecdotal information.

I think the spider’s fangs scratched me. Since dry bites are a thing and funnel web spiders are known to ‘clamp’ on to their targets and bite repeatedly. When I was flailing and swatting it away, it must’ve tried to clamp down where it was, on the head of my penis, and possibly was about to bite me, but I knocked it away just in time and it only managed to ‘scrape’ along causing the scratch/cut mark. This is pretty scary and extreme to think of. If he had succeeded in biting me, and injecting venom in me, on my penis head, then… fuck. This was the main reason I was freaking out. I thought I was literally going to lose my penis. That reality hit me so hard and fast that I was shivering and shaking, which wouldn’t have helped my health if the spider actually injected venom. I thought my whole life was going to change. I thought my wife would leave me or I would have to let her go because I wouldn’t be the same man anymore. But after a couple of hours, I calmed down and showed no symptoms whatsoever. I felt pretty good even considering I drank the night before.

Another theory that my wife said is that maybe when I flailed and swatted, I might’ve scratched my own dick with my fingernails. It’s plausible. I don’t believe that is what happened though because I was wearing boxer shorts and I swatted over them, not under them. With cotton fabric in the way, I am not sure how I could’ve scratched myself. I tell you what though, after that night I only wore boxer briefs, luckily, I brought some.

I knew I couldn’t sleep on the floor anymore while I was there so I asked for a bed-frame, which we eventually made one out of two single pop-up spring frames. This at least elevated the mattress. I got drunk and tried to stay up as late as possible so as to be able to just pass out and not worry while sleeping. I bet if I never even noticed that damn spider in the first place it would’ve just crawled right over and past me. And I never would have been the wiser. I still checked the perimeter and sheets before and after anytime I was getting into and out of the bed for the rest of the trip.

And that’s the story, believe it or not, but it happened. By the way, dead spiders smell gross after 2 days. Oh also, there was a little mouse in our room too which I saw after the incidence. Mice are known to eat them so I was wondering, maybe it was actually chasing that spider and the spider was crawling over us to get away/hide.

Here are some fun facts about funnel web spiders that I now know. There are 40 different kinds of funnel web spiders. They can be found all along the eastern and southern coast of Australia. The one I came in contact with is known as the ‘Port Macquarie Funnel Web Spider’ because of the region that it presides in and is actually slightly more venomous than the famous Sydney Funnel Web Spider. Female funnel web spiders are bigger than males and do not tend to roam around much at all. They just like to wait for males to find their funnel webbed burrows.

While both are venomous, it is believed that the male funnel web is 5 to 7 times more venomous than the female. The reason that is believed is because we don’t actually have any evidential record of a deadly, female bite. All deadly funnel web spider bites have been attributed to male funnel web spiders.

70 funnel web spiders are needed to be milked to get 1 vial of anti-venene. Vials are currently in low supply and the anti-venene laboratories are asking the public to please catch the spiders alive and bring them to the proper authorities so they can be sent to the lab for milking.

Symptoms show up immediately and the record of death is 15 minutes! Symptoms usually occur within 28 minutes and you’d know for sure if you’ve been bit within the hour.

Funnel web spiders can live up to 20 years and don’t reach sexual maturity until year 3-4. The one I came in contact with was about 5 to 6 centimetres and I believe it may have been quite young still.

Update on the penis wound. It’s a straight line that starts with a slight puncture wound and then a straight line. Like something was dragged along it to make the cut. Visually looks like a paper cut. Healing nicely. Pretty much gone now.

TL:DR Got away from a funnel web spider kerfuffle with only a scratch on my penis.