A Queensland scientist has discovered 11 new species of trapdoor spider lurking on mountains and in forests around the state.

Griffith University PhD student Jeremy Wilson, in conjunction with the Queensland Museum, tracked down new types of golden trapdoor spiders from remote parts of Cape York in the state's far north to Lamington National Park in the Gold Coast Hinterland.

"Some of the bigger species I've found are about the size of your palm," he said.

"Some have fangs about one centimetre long, so if they bite you they can do serious damage."

Mr Wilson said some of the new species could be deadly.

"No-one's been bitten by a lot of these species, so we don't know, but they could have venom that can have serious consequences for humans."

He said the burrow of one new species, that lives near Gympie on the Sunshine Coast, was particularly interesting.

A burrow of the Bellthorpe Euoplos. A Queensland scientist has discovered 11 new species of trapdoor spider lurking on mountains and in forests around the state. ( Supplied: Jeremy Wilson )

"Normally a trapdoor burrow has a door like a bath plug that sits in the hole. But the door for this species' burrow sticks up like a little turret, the lid is too big and it has little leaflets like a clover coming off the side," he said.

"There has to be an evolutionary reason for them to make the burrows like this, there has to be strong pressures for them to do that because it's a lot of effort."

Before the discovery only four species of golden trapdoor spider had been identified in Queensland.

Mr Wilson said trapdoor spiders are tricky to track down because they spend most of their life underground.

He said it was important to keep hunting new species because the spiders were in danger of becoming extinct before we even know they exist.

"Some of the species might only occur in one particular forest or mountain. So if you're going to take out a forest for commercial reasons, you could take out an entire species," he said.

"It's important we know they're there so we can take them into account as development continues."