APP PROVIDES ARACHNID IDENTIFICATION

Australia is home to wild, open spaces and recreation dreams that encourage us to venture out into the great outdoors and partake of all the splendour nature has to offer – including more than 2000 species of poisonous and non-poisonous hairy, crawly and generally terrifying spiders – eeek!

Luckily a father and daughter team from Minibeast Wildlife, Alan and Caitlin Henderson, have created Spidentify, a new app that helps you to identify any spiders you may encounter around your home or while on the trail – assisting you to know which ones to run away from quickly.

For those of you that are a little slower on the uptake and haven’t left a human-shaped dust cloud in the space where you used to stand upon encountering a spider, the app also provides a colour-coded danger rating and other helpful information about your hairy trail mate (the eight-legged variety).

Minibeast Wildlife claims the app was designed and developed as an online resource that helps to educate the public on spiders and insects, taking the ‘creepy’ out of the crawly, for the enquiry minds that want to know.

The app allows users to identify up to 250 species of spiders, which were catalogued by Alan and Caitlin during a six-day adventure along the Australian coast from Melbourne to Cairns as they photographed the country’s most popular spiders. Now that’s dedication!

In addition to the danger rating, the catalogue also contains information about a spider’s traits, including appearance and behaviour – so you can avoid inadvertently offending said arachnid and make a clean getaway.

Alan’s work as a macro photographer on Bugs Alive! and Caitlin’s experience managing the exhibit gave them the skills to capture all 250+ of the arachnids on the Spidentify app.

“For us, it was important that we create something that really guides you through from the very beginning, gives you an answer to those simple questions, and puts some of the persistent mythology and fear surrounding spiders to rest”, Caitlin told Lonely Planet.

Spidentify is available for download on the App Store and Google Play. Check out their website here for more information and be sure to download Spidentify before your next adventure into the great unknown - or just because you like spiders!