I Vacuum Venom from the World's Deadliest Spider

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Huge thanks to Dr Timothy Jackson with his help and answering our questions.

Thanks to Seqirus Australia for providing B-roll footage of the antivenom production process.

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References:

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:
Orlando Bassotto, Tj Steyn, meg noah, Bernard McGee, KeyWestr, Amadeo Bee, TTST, Balkrishna Heroor, John H. Austin, Jr., john kiehl, Anton Ragin, Benedikt Heinen, Diffbot, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Josh Hibschman, Mac Malkawi, Juan Benet, Ubiquity Ventures, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Stephen Wilcox, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Michael Krugman, and Sam Lutfi

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Written by Katie Barnshaw & Derek Muller
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Filmed by Petr Lebedev, Derek Muller and Jason Tran
Animation by Ivy Tello, Jakub Misiek and Fabio Albertelli
Additional video/photos supplied from Getty Images, Pond5
B-roll supplied by Seqirus Australia
Music from Epidemic Sound
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, Emily Zhang & Katie Barnshaw

[marshalbaek]

Out of the top 10 most deadly critters in the world, Australia seems to have 12 of them.

[leo-hao]

Remember, the cure for an irrational fear of spiders is to simply move to Australia. You'll still be afraid of spiders, but now, it is perfectly rational.

[Meekahel]

The fact that no one died of that spider in 40 years, justify this guy's work. Thanks for doing what you are doing.

[ryansandwich]

42 years with no deaths is one heck of a success rate! They're doing great work!

[nickbob]

The fact that no one has died from one in 40 years is pretty amazing

[YouTube]

shoutout to the Australian Reptile Park for saving lives since 1981

[SimBol]

My friend got bitten by one of these guys. I thought it was weird that a spider biologist would want to randomly bite another person, but people are into weird stuff.

[StainedJ]

Used to have these in the swimming pool constantly. Cleaning the pool filter was fun. Alsp jumping into the pool and coming up for air to then see a funnel web sitting on water surface near your face, start swimming backwards and the funnel web getting dragged toward you in your stream of water as you swim away from it, looked like it was chasing you. Childhood memories

[RedDesertRoz]

When I was in primary school (here in Sydney), I remember a boy in my class brought a funnel web in to school in a jar. He was passing the container around amongst the students before the teacher arrived. The boy explained that he'd killed the spider, so one brave kid opened the container. Teacher arrived and went absolutely mad. Boy insisted it was safe as he had killed the spider. Teacher asked him how he killed it and he said he drowned it. Teacher furious out of the sheer fear of what could have transpired yells that funnel-webs can survive underwater for more than 24 hours. Class was left inside and teacher went out to deal with the funnel-web. He came back to tell us that when he'd tipped it out, it was alive and well. Freaky as hell and only once more in my life did I see a teacher that angry. We were so lucky nothing happened to any of the kids. I believe the teacher killed the spider for the safety of the students, but these days we are encouraged to try to catch them safely for this anti-venom program.

[xXMockapapellaXx]

That animation of venom spreading through the body was very visceral

[Disc_]

That’s incredible that not a single person has died in 40 years from a funnel web in Australia.

[BryStrange]

Hey so the spider shown in the clip at 0:30 is a Funnel Weaver spider from the family Agelenidae and are not dangerous at all. The species this video is about is the Sydney Funnel-web Spider (Atrax robustus). They are not closely related. I hope this clears up any misinformation. Don't want people thinking the harmless Funnel Weavers can kill them.

[Quanazer]

Veritasium the only guy who could convince me to sit though looking at spiders for 9 minutes

[caderidley]

Im Australian so all of this was pretty common knowledge and nothing really put me off... and then i learnt they can survive underwater and ive definitely picked spiders (not these ones) off the bottom of a pool before. That sent shivers down my spine

[PfropfNo]

In case anyone wonders: 13 deaths caused by this spider were recorded in total (all before 1981). Most people survive the bite even without antidote. I don’t want to talk bad about this project. Not at all. I just feel like these info were missing for a complete picture of the situation.

[gcastles]

There's a few errors in this video. The spider in the shot at 0.30 when the voiceover says "this is a funnel web spider" is not a funnel web spider. That is a relatively harmless wolf spider. The funnel web is not the world's deadliest, that honour goes to the Brazilian wandering spider. Finally, funnel web spiders are not a single species- they are members of the family Atricidae. The species described in the clip is a Sydney funnel web Atrax robustus; so the correct term for this spider is the Sydney funnel web. Other members of the family are found well outside the range shown in the clip.

[Cavush]

Hats off to all the people doing this hard work every day, so others can be saved. Dealing with the spiders, working in the labs and hospitals, you are the true heroes.

[Amused_Comfort_Inc]

Hey Veritasium, the first images you showed of "funnel weavers" were actually hololena curta, a grass spider. They are funnel Weavers, apart of a large family of spiders, agelinidae. The Sydney Funnel Web spider is a different genus, and is not a grass spider :)

[SSmitar]

As always animation team putting in an absolutely phenomenal work in these vids. That animation about why this venom affects humans & how it spreads, just top notch.

[teamneutrophils]

My dad once said: "There are some very nasty animals in planet earth, especially in hot areas, exept Australia, which has extra nasty animals."