The Red Widow Spider is a species of bright red colored spiders belonging to the ‘widow spider’ group and found in a very limited area in the United States.
Size: Females are almost double the size of the male with average size 0.5 inch along with a leg span of 1.5 to 2 inches.
Color: The cephalothorax has a bright reddish-orange coloration, while the abdomen is solid black base color accompanied by yellow rings that outlined red spot rows. The legs have a vermillion red complexion.
Other Characteristic Features: The abdomen is larger and rounder than the thorax, with four pairs of thin but strong legs attached compactly to both the sides of the thorax.
After mating, the female widow spider lays the eggs wrapped in a spherical silken sac around ½ inch in diameter. The sac can contain anything between 200 and 400 eggs. Interestingly, a female can yield four to nine such sacs in a single summer. The mother takes care of the eggs by guarding the sacs while moving from one place to another within the web itself in order to maintain a uniform humidity and temperature.
It takes almost eight to ten days from the time the eggs were laid for the spiderlings to hatch out. The young spiders go through one single molting process right inside the sac before emerging after around two to four weeks. The baby spiders disperse with a strand of silk by ballooning on air currents. The juveniles need to go through seven more molts before attaining the stage of sexual maturity.
Like the other members of the genus Latrodectus, the red widows are indeed poisonous; however, there has been no record of a bite of this species in the medical literature. This is probably because of the red widow’s tendency to avoid human contacts, unlike its black and brown cosmopolitan counterparts.
| Lifespan | Most females live about nine months but the males die after a couple of weeks or a little more |
| Distribution | Central and southern Florida, USA |
| Habitat | Mostly in the sand dunes dominated by sand pine vegetation; mostly make their webs in the palmetto bushes |
| Common predators | Birds of prey, larger spiders and reptiles |
| Diet | Flies and other small creatures and arthropods that are caught in their webs |
Image Credit: I.pinimg.com, Static.dailysportx.com, Floridabackyardspiders.com, Bugguide.net
The Red Widow Spider is a species of bright red colored spiders belonging to the ‘widow spider’ group and found in a very limited area in the United States.
Size: Females are almost double the size of the male with average size 0.5 inch along with a leg span of 1.5 to 2 inches.
Color: The cephalothorax has a bright reddish-orange coloration, while the abdomen is solid black base color accompanied by yellow rings that outlined red spot rows. The legs have a vermillion red complexion.
Other Characteristic Features: The abdomen is larger and rounder than the thorax, with four pairs of thin but strong legs attached compactly to both the sides of the thorax.
After mating, the female widow spider lays the eggs wrapped in a spherical silken sac around ½ inch in diameter. The sac can contain anything between 200 and 400 eggs. Interestingly, a female can yield four to nine such sacs in a single summer. The mother takes care of the eggs by guarding the sacs while moving from one place to another within the web itself in order to maintain a uniform humidity and temperature.
It takes almost eight to ten days from the time the eggs were laid for the spiderlings to hatch out. The young spiders go through one single molting process right inside the sac before emerging after around two to four weeks. The baby spiders disperse with a strand of silk by ballooning on air currents. The juveniles need to go through seven more molts before attaining the stage of sexual maturity.
Like the other members of the genus Latrodectus, the red widows are indeed poisonous; however, there has been no record of a bite of this species in the medical literature. This is probably because of the red widow’s tendency to avoid human contacts, unlike its black and brown cosmopolitan counterparts.
| Lifespan | Most females live about nine months but the males die after a couple of weeks or a little more |
| Distribution | Central and southern Florida, USA |
| Habitat | Mostly in the sand dunes dominated by sand pine vegetation; mostly make their webs in the palmetto bushes |
| Common predators | Birds of prey, larger spiders and reptiles |
| Diet | Flies and other small creatures and arthropods that are caught in their webs |
Image Credit: I.pinimg.com, Static.dailysportx.com, Floridabackyardspiders.com, Bugguide.net
