Photographer Alex Wild got really, really close to the fangs of a Sydney funnel-web spider, and the results are both beautiful and terrifying.
The Sydney funnel-web spider, Atrax robustus, is widely known as Australia’s deadliest spider, with toxic venom capable of attacking the human nervous system and shutting down our organs, resulting in death. The males are particularly dangerous.
So, when someone asks you to get close to the fangs of a male Sydney funnel-web, the standard answer should normally be, “Hell no!”
American entomologist and photographer Alex Wild, also known by his Twitter handle Myrmecos, recently did the opposite, however. He took his camera to the lab of venom researcher David Wilson at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, in order to get some close-ups of those deadly fangs.
Wild writes about how he managed to get the final, surprisingly beautiful, shot (above) over at hisScientific American blog Compound Eye.
Wilson studies the venom of funnel-web spiders in the hope of finding new drugs. To set up the shot for Wild, he coaxed out a male and urged it (through some gentle poking) into a threat display, where it rears up and shows its fangs. So far, so dangerous.
But once in this pose, the spider freezes for a few minutes, as Wild explains: “The spider would then sit motionless for several minutes thereafter, fangs bared and legs raised. As someone used to frenetic ants, a sedentary spider was magic! The animal just posed, still as marble.”
His first shot was the one below.
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