As Kane Christensen went about collecting venom from Funnel Webs to create vaccines at the only collection point in the world at the Australian Reptile park, he began to notice that some spiders were quite large.  After a while, he realised that the big male spiders were all coming from Newcastle.

After initially contacting the Australian Museum – research was undertaken by a team from the Museum, the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Germany and Flinders University in Adelaide.  They found that in fact the Newcastle monsters were in fact a different species to those found in Sydney  Atrax robustus or the Blue Mountains / SW Sydney area  Atrax montanus .

He now is the inspiration for the Newcastle Funnel Web’s name Atrax christenseni.

But he just calls them Big Boy.

Image: Image: Courtesy Kane Christensen

Produced By: Roderick Chambers

Featured In Story: Kane Christensen – Australian Reptile Park. Discoverer of Atrax christenseni ‘Big Boy’

First aired on The Wire, Wednesday 15 January 2025