We’ll start off with the handsomest one. The saucer eyes that peer into your soul and the formidable fangs are hence the name, rooting this frightening creature back into mythological times. This crawler is also known as the Net-Casting Spider in Australia, as its very intricate web can grow to three times its size in an instant to ensnare a victim. In the morning, if no bounty has been captured, the Ogre consumes the web. Found over the continent but especially in the southern countries, Deino the Ogre carries an amount of venom which can kill an insect or small bird, but not a human.
In case you were wondering, “Sicarius” means “murderer” in Latin. So no need to worry. Found mostly in the Namib and Kalahari deserts, it will bury itself in the sands and then lash out at its prey, although it can be a rare occasion, as Six-Eye can live without food or drink for at least a year. Rabbits beware: one bite can kill you in a few hours. However, there are no recorded human fatalities to date. Its venom causes multi-tissue breakdown and blood vessel leakage, so best to not play hardball with this six-eyed desert dweller.
Perhaps not so much terrifying as purely riveting, the silk from this spider found in Madagascar is the toughest biological material ever studied. It also spins the largest web in the world, stretching anchor lines across rivers up to 82 feet in length. Darwini chooses to catch her prey above bodies of water because it’s exceptional to where all other spiders spin their webs. Though she loves to munch on mayflies, not humans, it would still be the stuff of nightmares to row your canoe into one of her webs.
Found in Uganda and Kenya, this multi-eyed terror prefers to stalk its prey than spin a web and bide its time. This is some serial killer-style stuff. To increase your affinity towards this creepster: it craves human blood! Okay, Eva the Evarcha doesn’t directly suck from your neck like Dracula, but instead deliberately hunts out female mosquitoes which have fed on human vertebrae blood. Scientific tests have showed that Eva will prefer blood-filled lady mosquitoes (male mosquitoes do not suck animal’s blood) over all other insects, proving that its prey preference is truly humans!
Popping up frequently in Southern African homes around the season of the summer rains, this hairy beast looks absolutely mortifying, but even an injection of its poison from a bite will likely not have effects on a human. Also called the Crab Spider because of its leg span which can sometimes stretch to three inches, the females can get aggressive when defending their eggs. An interesting experiment was done in 1959 to test how lethal the Huntsman’s poison was: scientists allowed one to bite an adult guinea pig on the nose, and seven minutes later the pig died. It was later ruled out that the venom didn’t kill it…but the shock of seeing the spider did!
Found mostly in the scrublands, savannas, and grasslands all over the continent, we know this spider as the common Tarantula, and indeed she is of the subfamily species. As with Tarantulas, Baboon Spiders have a quite toxic venom which can make a human vomit, walk funny, and experience shock symptoms. Nocturnal in their living habits, they derive their name from their thick furry fingers which resemble a baboon’s finger. However, while they may seem like the end of days to humans, it’s actually the opposite situation, as they are a commercially threatened species in Africa and are declining rapidly in numbers. Humans, once again, are the most dangerous animal.
One of the most dangerous spiders in the United States is the Brown Recluse, and here you have Africa’s spin on her. The smaller the scarier: though only less than an inch in size, the poison this musician packs can create a skin infection which can blister out into a very lethal secondary infection for humans if left untreated. Africa hosts 15 species all over the land, and their webs are normally spun under rock or logs. Their name comes from not the sweet music fiddled over your grave after they bite you, but from the violin-shaped marking on their thorax.
Look familiar? That’s because this vision of hell is the one we’ve been warned about all our lives: Black Widow!! Antidotes are in every South Africa hospital, as a bite from the Button constitutes a medical emergency. While it’s rare that grown humans die from these fangs, the intense muscular pain and paralysis as a result of their venom entering the bloodstream is of high concern, and old folks and kids are at a great risk of death. In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are six different species, found from Cape Verde to Madagascar.
The entire body and legs of this spider found mostly Sub-Saharan regions are colored yellow, but it can be easily distinguished because of its black face. The preferred habitat is the forest, so an overturned rock, log, or plant could find one of them. It is known for being one of the most common spiders to bite humans, as it is also a home invader that looks for dark warm areas like a bed. Their cytotoxin breaks down tissues and kills cells, and while not inherently dangerous must be treated. Quite a diverse species–over 400 different in the world–there are even a recorded three to four different kinds which exist in Egyptian cotton fields.
From the top to the bottom of Africa, you can find the Spitting Spider, harmless to humans but unsightly to behold. Perhaps this is because you may see a bulb of light skittering its way along the ground, which is just because this spider is shiny and glabrous (a scientific word for ‘without hair’). Stealthily approaching their victims (moths, flies, etc.) to a range of about five to 10 millimeters, the spider will eject silk all over the helpless creatures, paralyzing them and then attacking them with a disabling bite. South Africa has over 28 species of this spitting creeper.
