Strange markings

Since I moved here 32 years ago I've come to realize that the San Joaquin Valley is probably the Black Widow Spider Capitol of the World. I've seen lots of these little critters, but they are easy to avoid if you understand their habitats. I caught this one on my fence this morning, and she is evidently moulting. As the lighter carapace spreads and turns black, the lighter areas of the juvenile spider create some very strange markings before they disappear completely. On the underside, however, you can clearly see the characteristic red hourglass.

[ringadingh]

There not very common up here but Ive seen two the last couple years, maybe they're become more common here.

[audiogooroo]

We have a ton of black widows here, see them all the time, but I've never seen one with markings like that. Did she get into your wife's makeup case? ;)

LOL....Audio

We have Brown Widows in our garbage cans.....I saw a bunch of strange round spiky egg sacks...looked them up online...and they are even more venomous then black widows...but they don't put as much in their 'victim' as the black ones...Nico's son saw black widows in the backyard in the box of cans he's going to crush (some day!)

Juveniles around here are ivory-white with spots that eventually turn into stripes untill they turn all glossy black. This one, however, was evidently feeding really well, because it was the biggest, fattest, striped juvenile I've ever seen. I believe the brown ones are males; and they're quite attracted to the females and all get eaten quickly, so big ones are fairly rare.

Anyhow I thought the color scheme would be an awesome one for a peanut tank or something. Too bad my photos were so washed out. The sun was very bright and you just don't see the bright red and tan like when you get up close and personal.

BTW I was bitten by one when I was about 4. I don't remember it, but evidently my mom pretty much freaked out.

A friend of mine was bit at the age of about 26, and I think he had it much worse than me. He was still suffering pain on and off some weeks later.

http://www.badspiderbites.com/brown-widow-spider/

Red widows too!

It looks like their egg sacks are different (black & brown)

Thanks Sue. I never knew...!

[cactusjack]

We have black widows here, lots of them. The night we started moving in, my son and I were unloading boxes in the small garage late one night and I think I killed 7 of them. I hate spiders. Snakes, lizards, no problem. Never seen a scorpion here, although I know people who find them all the time.

[rksaw]

We have the Brown Recluse Spider up here. It's a pretty bad bite because you don't think it is as serious as it really is at first. When a black widow bites you, you know it right away (although I don't know this from first hand experience, thank God).

CJ, even growing up in Tucson, the first scorpion I ever saw was in the middle of one of the buildings at Sabino High. My brothers and I would be stupid and hunt for them in the desert, and all those years yeilded nothing...but walking through the hallway during classes one day I saw something move, and there it was. Surprised the heck out of me.

I did love coming across a Gila Monster during a cross-country practice. Talk about ugly!

I never did see a gila monster, but we lived in the desert and hunted scorpions and tarantulas all the time when I was about 9 or 10.

I didn't know about Brown Widows until I googled the egg sack...found out they hide in garbage cans....and other dark places...look here caddman...maybe you have brown widows too....

http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/spiders...eometricus.htm

I don't think I've ever seen the spikey egg sacs around here. But lots of the smooth ones. I go widow hunting pretty often.

[rlfaubion]

Widow hunting is good. Especially if you find one left with a big insurance policy pay-off.

I don't think he meant THIS kind of black widow hunting Valdez!