A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia

(Paperback)

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Description

Australians have a love-hate relationship with spiders. Spiders inspire fear, especially dangerous species such as the Redback and Sydney Funnelweb. Yet, Peacock Spiders, whose males spread a colourful fan and wave their legs in a courtship dance to impress females, have won rapturous appreciation worldwide.

A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia uses photographs of live animals to enable identification of commonly encountered spiders to the family level and, in some cases, to genus and species. Featuring over 1300 colour photographs, it is the most comprehensive account of Australian spiders ever published. With more than two-thirds of Australian spiders yet to be scientifically described, this book sets the scene for future explorations of our extraordinary Australian fauna.

For a sneak peek of A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia check out this CSIRO blog post.

"Read no further unless you are willing to fall in love with spiders. Submitting to the pages that follow could change your life..." ~Tim Low

Reviews

"It may just change your mind about arachnids, and help you identify many of the spiders you have encountered. Not all are scary!" -- Ally Jackson * Gardening Australia, August 2017 *
"The spider imagery presented throughout this book is superb for its quality, variety and attention to detail. The over 1300 spider images, contributed by 62 photographers, are the stars of this book. Images of juveniles, intraspecific variations, undescribed and named species are all displayed... I thoroughly recommend this book for personal enjoyment, as a field guide or as a way to enthuse someone new to the field of Australian spiders." -- Ken Walker * The Victorian Naturalist 134(4), 2017 *

Author Bio

Robert Whyte is an honorary researcher in arachnology at the Queensland Museum, having developed an interest in spiders with the encouragement of arachnologist Robert Raven. He has participated in five Bush Blitz biodiscovery expeditions in remote parts of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. He is an accomplished editor, author and journalist, with skills in photography and publication design. Greg Anderson is a biomedical research scientist and heads the Chronic Disorders Program at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane. He has been interested in spiders since his early life in Newcastle and has travelled extensively around Australia and other parts of the world studying and photographing spiders. He has a particular interest in Comb-footed Spiders.