black widow season

7 Responses to “black widow season”

1. posted by clayb at November 4, 2007 5:46 pm :
   

   Heavens! You would have made a very scary vampire!

2. posted by sarah at November 4, 2007 10:03 pm :
   

   yikes!! i would not have liked to have found that.

3. posted by RVA Foodie at November 4, 2007 11:31 pm :
   

   From the Byrd Park Civic League msg board:

   http://groups.google.com/group/byrdpark/browse_thread/thread/2ec88dcdf3c9e32d

   In the past two weeks, I’ve run into THREE fairly large black widow
   spiders while working in the backyard and the alley between Rosewood
   and Idlewood (2100 block). In one case, the spider was hiding under a
   plastic pot for a hanging plant. The other two were in a pile of
   bricks that I was trying to move from one place to another.
   Basically, they make their homes in dark spots that are left untended

   WEAR WORK GLOVES!

   When you’re moving old stuff around in your backyard/alley, be sure to
   wear work gloves. Not only do they keep you from having to scrub dirt
   off of your hands, they also protect your skin from bug/spider bites.

   How do you know a black widow when you see one? They are jet black
   (almost unnaturally so), without any variation except for a small
   candy apple red hourglass on their bellies. The spider’s body is big
   and bulbous compared to its legs. It does NOT have a menacing face
   full of eyes and teeth like many of the other critters out there. So,
   the things to look for are glossy black round bodies and a flash of
   red - the color of lipstick. Really impressive looking… but
   dangerous.

   What to do with’em?
   I hate to be a hypocritical animal rights activist, but go ahead and
   stomp on them and clear out any spot that might be a hiding place for
   these spiders in your yard/alley.

4. posted by mc at November 6, 2007 5:46 pm :
   

   that thing is disgusting. i would have passed out!

5. posted by Sean Harvey at November 9, 2007 10:36 am :
   

   That’s a really big spider. I hope all is well with you…just stay away from the spider.

6. posted by BML at November 15, 2007 11:35 pm :
   

   I don’t think I realized that black widows hung out around here! Wow…that bad boy is big!

7. posted by Jovan L at January 29, 2008 4:53 pm :
   

   Venom

   See also: Spider bite

   Although their venom is extremely potent, (15 times more potent than that of the rattlesnakes; it is also reported to be much more potent than the venom of cobras and coral snakes), these spiders are not especially large. Compared to many other species of spiders, their chelicerae are not very large or powerful. In the case of a mature female, the hollow, needle shaped part of each chelicera, the part that penetrates the skin, is approximately 1.0 mm (about .04 inch) long, long enough to inject the venom to to a point where it can be harmful. The males, being much smaller, injects far less venom with smaller chelicerae. The actual amount injected, even by a mature female, is very small in physical volume. When this small amount of venom is diffused throughout the body of a healthy, mature human, it usually does not amount to a fatal dose (though it can produce the very unpleasant symptoms of latrodectism). Deaths in healthy adults from Latrodectus bites are relatively rare in terms of the number of bites per thousand people. Only 63 deaths were reported in the United States between 1950 and 1989. On the other hand, the geographical range of the widow spiders is very great. As a result, far more people are exposed, world-wide, to widow bites than are exposed to bites of more dangerous spiders, so the highest number of deaths world-wide are caused by members of their genus. Widow spiders have more potent venom than most spiders, and prior to the development of antivenin, 5%[citation needed] of reported bites resulted in fatalities. The venom can cause a swelling up to 15 cm. Improvements in plumbing have greatly reduced the incidence of bites and fatalities in areas where outdoor privies have been replaced by flush toilets. In Sweden there have been incidents with black widow spiders being found in cars imported from southern U.S.[1] Old cars standing unused are an attractive habitat for the spider.

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