Northland climate would suit feared Aussie redback spider

It has a terrible reputation, is associated with a toilet seat in an Australian folk song, and could be coming to a town near you.
Arachnophobes should stop reading now.
Research shows that the redback, the evil cousin of New Zealand's only venomous native spider, the katipo, is capable of setting up home on this side of the Tasman. It also appears to be capable of mating with - inbreeding which could potentially wipe out - the katipo.
Northland, with its warm climate and dry coastal areas, would suit the redback.
Known to scientists as Latrodectus hasseltii, only twice in the past 20 years have they been found in Northland - one female in Whangarei in 1992 and another female in Maungaturoto in 1990.
"Fortunately in both instances the specimens were found and there has been no evidence of others in those areas," Canterbury based arachnologist and AgResearch scientist Cor Vink said.
Dr Vink said with climate change and drier weather conditions on the horizon, there was a "reasonable risk" the Australian spiders could become established in parts of the country.
Where conditions are good for vineyards, they're generally good for redbacks too.
When they have arrived as stowaways, it's been in car bonnets, tyres, on steel girders and wood.
Several redbacks turned up in Central Otago in the 1980s, thought to have been carried in on Australian hardwood power poles.
Very alarming, the presence of katipo DNA in a redback spider found north of Gisborne indicates some crossbreeding going on.
Inbreeding, should it become widespread, could kill off the katipo altogether.
But despite the unexplained mixed DNA, no colonies have been found and redbacks have not been intercepted at Gisborne's port since one was found in 2005, and before that once in 1998.
While the message needs to be put out for people to report sightings of the 20-cent sized black spider with a clear blood-red stripe down its back, there is no need to panic, Dr Vink said.
He and fellow AgResearch scientist Craig Phillips used recorded redback sightings and climate and vegetation modelling to determine the most likely settlement areas.
Their findings were averaged out over 30 years of redback sightings - in other words, very few.
Redbacks have been described as "shy and retiring". The redback has a neurotoxic venom similar to a katipo and affects some people but not others. No deaths of people bitten have been reported for more than 50 years.