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Comments & ID Thoughts
Got itself stuck on my patio right after I painted the concrete, so it was active at around 5 PM. I live in middle Tennessee and have seen black widows before, but this one is different.
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Jul 9, 2018
- Photographed: Jul 9, 2018
- Spider: Latrodectus mactans (Southern Black Widow)
- Location: Cookeville , Tennessee, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.)
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes: Dorsal
Mar 9, 2024
Jan 26, 2024
Bent Mountain, 
Not all black widow spiders have an hourglass, and can have just the red dots like in your pic… Scary!
It may be a Northern black widow, Latrodectus mactans. There can be multiple species where you live and they have different markings. Markings can vary with age and gender also. The hourglass mark for black or brown widows is on the underside of the abdomen. That marking also varies.
I agree, it may be Latrodectus mactans – that’s the Southern Black Widow though, Northern is L. variolus.
Thank you Tangled Web for clarifying that part of identifying a black widow for me. I always thought the hourglass was on the top, not the underside of the abdomen, so that was very helpful.