A big, rough, tough retired Marine I know now working as a ski patroller is terrified of those.

That's not a really bad one. The spider you really must fear is the Sydney funnel web. The red back can also kill, but is mostly dangerous to smaller children or the elderly.

When we moved into our rental house in the northern suburbs of Sydney, we found a chart of spiders on the bulletin board in the kitchen. When we opened the broom closet there was another poster of dangerous spiders on the inside of the door. My wife said, "What have I gotten myself into?"

Shortly after that, I heard a gasp from the kitchen and found my wife facing a frilled lizard (also poisonous) at the sliding back door. I reached in and slid the door shut. My wife sat down and the lizard on the other side of the glass scurried away.

One thing I quickly learned was to not put my hands into places before I looked. I examined the children's play area before they used it and killed a couple of red backs on the underside of the swing.

Our house windows had no screens. I was very near-sighted and one morning as I was showering, I noticed a dark shape moving on the shower wall. I slipped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and took a swing at what turned out to be a larger wolf spider (that could be what that woman was pursuing in the video). That weekend, I went to the hardware store and bought kits to add screens to all the windows in the house.

There are lots of poisonous creatures in Australia. Even the platypus has poison spurs on its fore legs. In the end, though, you're much more likely to be killed in a traffic accident than by a poisonous creature.

Big Al

most of what I know about spiders and other wildlife comes from this artist:

Spiders.... feh! What you really need to fear are dropbears.

Bill Bryson informs us that pretty much everything in Australia wants to kill you.