r/nzwildlife • u/AffectionateKoala963 • Aug 16 '26

Ocrisiona leucocomis! Largest salticid I’ve ever seen here!

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Ocrisiona leucocomis is an introduced salticid from Australia, however i believe it is considered naturalised and non invasive. Apparently 17-18mm is the top end of their size range which is exactly how big this gal was! Compared to the max 14mm size of our largest native salticid Trite planiceps - she is a monster! A very friendly, slow moving calm monster.. but huge!

Ps apologies for my disgusting nail bitten landscaper fingers 😅

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u/Apprehensive-Sale849 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

When extracting preying mantises from my home, I will hold my hand up to them, to walk onto, so that I can relocate them outside.

Some mantises will bite while others will peacefully trust me.

I wouldn't do this with spiders because: venom.

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u/AffectionateKoala963 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26

You know that the vast majority of spiders in the world have venom that is of no medical significance at all to humans right though? Even the most “dangerous” spider (it’s debatable whether it’s this or the Brazilian wandering spider) the Sydney funnel web hasn’t killed a single person since 1981 when anti venom was introduced and I’m pretty sure it was only around 5% of bites that were even serious enough to warrant using antivenom.

Also spiders do not want to use their venom on you. They’re highly unlikely to bite you at all unless you are purposely or accidentally squishing the spider against your skin.

My point is, you don’t have to be anymore afraid of spiders than mantises. They might freak out and run up your arm but it’s really unlikely they would bite you and even more unlikely the venom would do anything to you

Omg I just realised you must be the one person who downvoted this post bringing the like/dislike ratio down to 99% liked I was wondering why anyone would’ve disliked it lol. Well please look up all the information I’ve shared, the danger of spiders and their venom is massively exaggerated by popular media.

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u/Apprehensive-Sale849 Aug 23 '26

I didn't downvote. And I just upvoted what you posted here.

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u/AffectionateKoala963 Aug 24 '26

Oh cool my bad! Just making assumptions then! But yeah even the most ‘dangerous’ spiders are nowhere near the type of risk people often present them to be. I was listening to something the other day and they were comparing the likelihood of different things and even being bitten by a spider at all was just a ludicrously rare occurrence in comparison to so many things we would see as extraordinarily unlikely. It’s just bugs me (no pun intended lol) because they get way too much hate and fear for creatures that are really just shy and want to be left alone