From time to time one of my staff would catch a male Atrax robustus† in his backyard and bring it to work. I'd create a home for the spider out of a very large

From time to time one of my staff would catch a male Atrax robustus† in his backyard and bring it to work. I'd create a home for the spider out of a very large jar by placing in it rocks and sufficient dirt for him to make his funnel-web home. Funnel-webs would happily live there for well over year, and we'd feed them on live slaters (wood lice) and occasionally other insects (we only ever kept one at a time). The jar used to take pride of place on my office desk and sometimes visitors who came to my office were somewhat unnerved by it. Every morning when I came into my office and switched on the lights he'd rise up in an aggressive pose (as in the photo in the link below). To impress visitors, I'd poke a pencil through the air vents holes in the jar's lid then he'd immediately attack it and you could see venom running down the side of the pencil. After a while that pencil—which was kept specifically for the purpose—ended up rather pockmarked. We kept a number of them over the years but only males, as they are not only more deadly than the females but also they're considerably more aggressive. I've more stories about them. When I was a kid, I had one on the back of my hand but luckily I wasn’t bitten. Once I'd been bushwalking and after climbing out of a valley at night I pointed my flashlight to the ground and saw that I was in a midst of multiple nests of females some of whom were out of their nests and roaming near my feet. I was so physically exhausted I didn't even bother moving. Another instance was when one bit someone who I knew vaguely. This was in the days before the availability of antivenene and he was very seriously ill despite being immediately taken to hospital (he ended up with pulmonary oedema and other complications and nearly died). † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrax_robustus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrax_robustus