More venom

Here is a continuation on the venom theme about the rattlesnake in the last blog posting.

The Black Widow Spider in this picture has venom many time more toxic than the rattlesnake. The good news is that they don't inject as much if they bite you. If you live south of Oregon to New York you may have Black Widows in your yard.

The one in these photos was in my backyard.

The Black Widow is a beautiful spider. The female is usually patent leather shiny black with the red or orange “hourglass” marking on her abdomen. The ones that I have seen have a body about the size of a blueberry and with their legs extended they cover a quarter or larger.

They get their name from the belief that the female always kills and eats the male after mating. This sometimes happens but usually the male escapes to mate again. Thank goodness the kill and eat idea didn’t catch on.

Black Widows are most often found outside in old logs, rock piles, wood piles, and in crawlspaces. Some types of Black Widows will build their web in trees. All have a very messy looking web, not the beautiful symmetric webs that some spiders weave. The females rarely leave their web. The one in the pictures here had a web under some loose bark on a dead log in the woods behind my house. They are in some of your yards also.

Fortunately, Black Widows usually retreat when they encounter humans and don’t bite. Unfortunately, if they do bite, their venom is 15 times as powerful as rattlesnake venom; but they can only inject a small amount. A very small percentage of Black Widow bites do cause human fatalities, so if you are bitten, go to a hospital and if possible take the critter (dead, preferably) with you.