Southern black widow
The southern black widow is a shiny black spider with a round tummy. Underneath, it has a red mark shaped like an hourglass. It is one of the best-known spiders in America. The male is much smaller than the female.
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Fun facts
Young black widows do not look like their parents. They are grey with white stripes and yellow and orange spots.
Some males are purple.
Its web is a messy tangle, but the silk is very strong.
A mother can make four to nine egg sacs in one summer, each with 100 to 400 eggs.
Females can live for up to three years.
Most asked questions about Southern black widow
?How can you recognise a black widow?
The female is shiny black with a red hourglass mark on the underside of her round tummy.
?What does a black widow eat?
Mostly insects, but also woodlice, millipedes, centipedes and other spiders caught in its web.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Latrodectus mactans
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1775
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Theridiidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Theridiidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Black widow, Shoe-button spider
Where the facts come from
- Latrodectus mactans (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by unknown author. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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