Western Black Widow
I’m getting pretty efficient at capturing the brown widows (Latrodectus geometricus) around my apartment building. I’ve learned that quicker is better. A fluid motion with the open jar underneath the spider through its web will startle it, causing it to roll up into a ball and “play possum,” falling nicely into the bottom of the jar. I caught four in under a minute using this process. I captured a tiny specimen, measuring about 2-3mm (head to abdomen) and a couple large ones, measuring 6-7mm. As I went along the fence, picking off brown widows spaced out every 4-5 feet, I got a surprise: a western black widow (Latrodectus hesperus). This would be the first black widow I’ve seen in Arcadia. Capturing the juvenile female wasn’t difficult, my method of sweeping a jars mouth over her from below worked. But she did react more defensive to my attack. Instead of rolling into a ball and playing dead like every brown widow I captured, this one faced the threat and splayed her legs in a defensive posture. Luckily, I had literally netted her in the jar with her own webbing. Without delay, I screwed on the lid.
As I’ve mentioned before, my main reason for capturing these spiders is to help Georgia Southern University on their ongoing study of Latrodectus. I’d like to think that giving them these specimens will help broaden our knowledge of the widow. The other reason I’ve been capturing them is to hopefully rid them from my area. I’ve got seventeen brown widows in individual glass vials/jars on my desk and they’re beginning to give me the creeps. I’ll euthanize them soon to mail (you cannot send live venomous spiders in the mail) and ship them out later this week if all goes well.
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