Arachnid experts at the Australian Reptile Park have been breeding funnel web spiders, contributing to a large-scale breeding and antivenom program.

The park’s spider team have paired funnel webs 80 times over the past week as part of the only funnel web venom extraction program in Australia.

Funnel web antivenom was developed in 1981, before which 13 deaths had been recorded as a result of the dangerous spider’s bite. No fatalities have been recorded since that time.

"This is an exciting time as it’s the first time the Australian Reptile Park has bred funnel web spiders and we are getting some interesting results," Kane Christensen, the park’s head of spiders, said.