The poison paradox: How Australia's deadliest animals save lives

With a brace of agleam pinkish tweezers successful hand, Emma Teni is delicately wrestling a ample and leggy spider successful a tiny integrative pot.

"He's posing," the spider-keeper jests arsenic it rears up connected its backmost legs. It is precisely what she's trying to execute - that mode she tin suck the venom from its fangs utilizing a tiny pipette.

Emma works from a tiny bureau known arsenic the spider milking room. On a emblematic day, she milks - oregon extracts the venom from - 80 of these Sydney funnel-web spiders.

On 3 of the 4 walls determination are floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked afloat of the arachnids, with a achromatic curtain pulled crossed to support them calm.

The remaining partition is really a window. Through it, a tiny kid stares, some fascinated and horrified, arsenic Ms Teni works. Little bash they cognize that the palm-sized spider she's handling could termination them successful a substance of minutes.

"Sydney funnel-webs are arguably the astir deadly spider successful the world," Emma says matter-of-factly.

Australia is famously afloat of specified deadly animals - and this country astatine the Australian Reptile Park plays a captious portion successful a authorities antivenom programme, which saves lives connected a continent wherever it's often joked that everything wants to termination you.

'Spider girl'

While the quickest recorded decease from a Sydney funnel-web spider was a toddler astatine 13 minutes, the mean is person to 76 minutes - and archetypal assistance gives you an adjacent amended accidental of surviving.

So palmy is the antivenom programme present astatine the Australian Reptile Park that cipher has been killed by 1 since it started successful 1981.

The strategy relies, however, connected members of the nationalist either catching the spiders oregon collecting their ovum sacs.

In a van plastered with a elephantine crocodile sticker, each week Ms Teni's squad drives each implicit Australia's astir celebrated city, picking up Sydney funnel-webs that person been handed successful astatine drop-off points specified arsenic section veterinary practices.

There are 2 reasons wherefore these spiders are truthful dangerous, she explains: not lone is their venom highly potent, but they besides unrecorded exclusively successful a densely populated portion wherever they're much apt to brushwood humans.

Handyman Charlie Simpson is 1 specified person. He moved into his archetypal location with his woman a fewer months ago, and the keen gardener has already recovered 2 Sydney funnel-webs. He took the 2nd spider to the vet, wherever Ms Teni picked it up soon after.

"I had gloves connected astatine the time, but realistically I should person had leather gloves connected due to the fact that their fangs are truthful large and strong," the 26-year-old says.

"I [just thought] I had amended drawback it due to the fact that I kept getting told you're meant to instrumentality them backmost to beryllium milked, due to the fact that it's truthful critical."

"This is curing my fearfulness of spiders," helium jokes.

As Ms Teni offloads 1 arachnid that was delivered to her successful a Vegemite jar, she stresses her squad isn't telling Australians to spell looking for the spiders and "throw themselves into danger".

Rather, they're asking that if idiosyncratic comes crossed one, they safely seizure it alternatively than termination it.

"Saying that this is the world's astir deadly spider and past [asking the nationalist to] drawback it and bring it to america does dependable counter-intuitive," she says.

"[But] that spider determination now, acknowledgment to Charlie, will… efficaciously prevention someone's life."

All of the spiders her squad collects get brought backmost to the Australian Reptile Park wherever they are catalogued, sorted by enactment and stored.

Any females that get dropped disconnected are considered for a breeding programme, which helps supplement the fig of spiders donated by the public.

Meanwhile, the males, which are six to 7 times much toxic than the females, are utilized for the antivenom programme and milked each 2 weeks, Emma explains.

The pipette she uses to region the venom from the fangs is attached to a suction hose - important for collecting arsenic overmuch venom arsenic possible, since each spider provides lone tiny amounts.

While a fewer drops is capable to kill, scientists request to beverage 200 of these spiders to person capable to capable 1 vial of antivenom.

A marine biologist by training, Emma ne'er expected to walk her days milking spiders. In fact, she started disconnected moving with seals.

But present she wouldn't person it immoderate different way. Emma loves each things arachnid, and goes nether assorted nicknames - spider girl, spider mama, adjacent "weirdo", arsenic her girl calls her.

Friends, household and neighbours trust connected her for her cognition of Australia's creepy crawlies.

"Some girls get location to flowers connected their doorstep," jokes Emma. "For maine it's not antithetic to get location to a spider successful a jar."

The champion spot to beryllium bitten?

Spiders correspond conscionable 1 tiny portion of what the Australian Reptile Park does. It's besides been providing snake venom to the authorities since the 1950s.

According to the World Health Organisation, arsenic galore arsenic 140,000 radical dice crossed the satellite from snake bites each year, and 3 times that galore are near disabled.

In Australia though, those numbers are acold lower: betwixt 1 and 4 radical each year, acknowledgment to its palmy antivenom programme.

Removing a King Brown snake from its retention locker, Billy Collett, the park's operations manager, brings it to the array successful beforehand of him.

With his bare hands, helium secures its caput and puts its jaws implicit a changeable solid covered successful cling film.

"They are precise uninclined to wound but erstwhile they go, you conscionable spot it pouring retired of the fangs," Mr Collett says, arsenic yellowish venom drips to the bottom.

"That is capable to termination each of america successful the country 5 times implicit - possibly more."

Then helium switches to a much reassuring tone: "They're not looking for radical to bite. We're excessively large for them to eat; they don't privation to discarded their venom connected us. They conscionable privation to beryllium near alone."

"To get bitten by a venomous snake, you've got to truly annoy it, provoke it," helium adds, noting that bites often hap erstwhile idiosyncratic is trying to termination 1 of the reptiles.

There's a fridge successful the country of the country wherever the earthy venom Mr Collett is collecting is stored. It's afloat of vials labelled "Death Adder", "Taipan", "Tiger Snake" and "Eastern Brown".

The past of these is the second-most venomous snake successful the world, and the 1 that's astir apt to wound you here, successful Australia.

This venom gets freeze-dried and sent to CSL Seqirus, a laboratory successful Melbourne, wherever it's turned into an antidote successful a process that tin instrumentality up to 18 months.

The archetypal measurement is to nutrient what's known arsenic hyper-immune plasma. In the lawsuit of snakes, controlled doses of the venom are injected into horses, due to the fact that they are larger animals with a beardown immune system.

The venom of Sydney funnel-web spiders goes into rabbits, which are immune to the toxins. The animals are injected with expanding doses to physique up their antibodies. In immoderate cases, that measurement unsocial tin instrumentality astir a year.

The animal's supercharged plasma is removed from the blood, and past the antibodies are isolated from the plasma earlier they're bottled, acceptable to beryllium administered.

CSL Seqirus makes 7,000 vials a twelvemonth – including snake, spider, stonefish and container jellyfish antivenoms - and they are valid for 36 months. The situation past is to guarantee everyone who needs it has supplies.

"It's an tremendous undertaking," says Dr Jules Bayliss, who leads the antivenom improvement squad astatine CSL Seqirus.

"First and foremost we privation to spot them successful large agrarian and distant areas that these creatures are apt to beryllium in."

Vials are distributed depending connected the taxon successful each area. Taipans, for example, are successful bluish parts of Australia, truthful there's nary request for their antivenom successful Tasmania.

Antivenom is besides fixed to the Royal Flying Doctors, who entree immoderate of the nation's astir distant communities, arsenic good arsenic Australian navy and cargo ships for sailors astatine hazard of oversea snake bites.

Papua New Guinea besides receives astir 600 vials a year. The state was erstwhile connected to Australia by a onshore bridge, and shares galore of the aforesaid snake species, truthful the Australian authorities gives the antivenom for escaped – snake diplomacy, if you like.

"To beryllium honest, we astir apt person the astir interaction successful Papua New Guinea, much truthful than Australia, due to the fact that of the fig of snake bites and deaths they have," says CSL Seqirus enforcement Chris Larkin. To date, they reckon they've saved 2,000 lives.

Back astatine the park, Mr Collett jokes astir the nickname of "danger noodles" that is sometimes fixed to his serpentine colleagues – a classical Australian trait of making airy of thing that gives truthful galore visitors nightmares.

Mr Collett, though, is clear: these animals should not enactment radical disconnected from visiting.

"Snakes aren't conscionable cruising down the streets attacking Brits - it doesn't enactment similar that," helium jokes.

"If you're going to get bitten by a snake, Australia's the champion spot – we've got the champion antivenom. It's free. The attraction is unreal."