redback

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Redback

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Calidris alpina

red +‎ back

redback (plural redbacks)

(Australia) A venomous spider, Latrodectus hasselti, endemic to Australia.
- 1988 June 16, Stephanie Pain, Things that go plop in the night, New Scientist, page 78,
  “If you find a redback, squash it firmly,” advised one guide.
- 1996, James Lambert, The Macquarie Book of Slang, Sydney: Macquarie Library, page 254:
  Many a red-back, funnel-web, or other spider has found its resting days at the bottom of a vegemite jar shoved into some dark recess of the laundry.
- 2005 October, Martha Harrison, Brilliant 10: Marydianne Andrade, Popular Science, page 58,
  Andrade first encountered the redback— whose lethal bite gives it as infamous a reputation in Australia as the black widow enjoys here in North America—when her grad-school adviser asked to travel to go to Perth to study them.
- 2007, Steve Backshall, Steve Backshall's Venom: Poisonous Animals in the Natural World, page 114:
  Easily identified by a red, orange or brownish stripe on the abdomen, Redbacks are responsible for by far the most spider bites in Australia.
- 2012, Peter Macinnis, Australian Backyard Naturalist, page 55:
  The only truly dangerous Australian spiders are funnelwebs and redbacks but, these days, deaths of people from these spiders seem to be a thing of the past since antivenom is now available.
(US) A brown and white sandpiper (Calidris alpina), native to the Northern Hemisphere; the dunlin.

Latrodectus hasselti

Modelled after greenback, the currency of the United States of America, except using Communist Red

redback (plural redbacks)