Close encounters of the furred kind: alien butt spider and friends – in pictures

Funnel web, trapdoor and redback spiders: their names alone are enough to provoke a thigh-clenching chill in most of us. A new publication from the CSIRO, A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia, attempts to change this. 'No one has actually died from a spider bite in Australia for more than 30 years, but plenty of people have been injured panicking at the sight of a huntsman.'

Authors Robert Whyte and Greg Anderson have produced a comprehensive guide, introducing the reader to fabulously named species like sparklemuffins, the alien butt spider, disco mirror ball spiders and dancing peacock spiders. Here are a small selection of the 1,350 photographs from the book.