Are you ready for some black widows?

Staying quit is still very difficult. My hope is that I will, indeed, stay quit and that easiness will sneak up on me, that I'll wake up some morning and think "wow, this used to be MUCH harder, I'm so glad it's not anymore."

In the meantime, let's look at some black widow photos.

My cousin, as you must know by now, is the fabulously talented photographer who graces us with these images.

So here is her note: "The blond ones with the large circles in the front, I believe are males. I believe that those round things have something to do with reproduction. They may be sacs for fertilization, but I will leave all that to YOUR expertise. Have fun, now that I got the heebie jeebies from the photos I am going to bed."

You may also feel that pics of black widows give you the heebie jeebies, but please do check out her store at: http://www.viewbug.com/estore/littlemphoto. There you will see some terrifically lovely photos of only nice things which you may want to hav

e grace your living room.

Now, I'm still not quite feeling myself (and I cannot figure out what those circle things are, do you know?) so instead of actually writing something, I'm going to pull in quotes from various interesting websites. Hope that is ok.

Latrodectus hesperus, the Western black widow spider or Western widow, is a venomous spider species found in western regions of the United States of America. The population was previously described as a subspecies of Latrodectus mactans and it is closely related to the northern species Latrodectus variolus. The species, as with others of the genus, build irregular webs. Taxonomy from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus_hesperus

Color - Females

Females of the Western, Southern, and Northern widows look like the classic black widow spider. The body is shiny black and the underside of the abdomen has orange-red marking(s) on it. Many female widows will also have an orange-red spot immediately above the spinnerets on the top of the abdomen. The Brown widow female varies in color from light brown to dark grey and the hourglass on the underside of the abdomen typically is more orange than red. Lighter colored females may have whitish spots along the upper sides of the abdomen, similar to the marking of immature widow spiders.

Adult Males

Male widows may be either completely black or maintain some of the immature coloration. They do not possess the hourglass type marking of the larger females. However, males usually have some red marking located on the top or underside of the abdomen.

Juvenile Widows

The coloration of the juvenile widow spider typically is quite different from the adult. The abdomen is grayish to black with white stripes running across it and spotted with yellow and orange.

Coloration info from: http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/444/444-422/444-422.html

Breeding

Adult male Black Widows wander in search of females but do not feed or bite. Females may occasionally kill and eat a male after mating but this is more the exception than the rule.

The female then lays several batches, containing up to 750 eggs each, in one summer. The egg case, about 1/2 inch in diameter, is suspended in the web. It is white to tan in color and has a paper-like texture. There may be 4 to 9 egg sacs produced during a summer. Normally, only 1 to 12 young survive after the egg incubation period of 14 to 30 days due to cannibalism.

breeding info from: http://www.desertusa.com/july97/du_bwindow.html

(Gosh, these are some nice fluffy kindly animals, aren't they...cannibalism...sheesh.)

Food Habits

Latrodectus mactans is exclusively carnivorous and antagonistic. Ordinarily it feeds on insects; however, it also consumes wood lice, diplopods, chilopods and other arachnids. Usually, the black widow spider enswathes prey caught in its snare, bites it, and later drags it to its hub, or retreat, to be eaten. Latrodectus mactans inflicts a small wound on its prey, uses its cheliceral teeth to mash it up, pours digestive enzymes on the prey; and sucks up the resulting food. The whole digestion process takes place outside the spider’s body. (Kaston, 1953; Snow, 1970; Preston-Mafham, 1996; Foelix, 1996; Levine and Miller, 1991; Gertsch, 1979).

Food habits info from: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Latrodectus_mactans.html

Some people are afraid of spiders. I've had to do a lot of field work around black widows in a check dam for a riparian area, and I'm not any more afraid of them than I am any other dangerous thing. I'm more afraid of cockroaches than black widows.

What are you afraid of?