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Comments & ID Thoughts
Location is in the Central Valley of Northern California. Just south of Sacramento. Found spider on underside of trash can lid outside. We have allot of black widows here, and I first thought this was a black widow, but upon closer inspection the markings look way different. I was not able to get a look at the belly side of the spider to check for the trademark red hourglass which black widows possess. Is this a male black widow, or another species all together?
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Jan 12, 2019
- Photographed: Jan 12, 2019
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Stockton, California, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.)
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
Hi, this might be a brown widow (not as dangerous as a black widow). Latrodectus geometricus. The hourglass mark varies in shape by black widow species. It is possible to have multiple species in one state. The ventral surface would often have an orange hourglass on this species. They can kill black widows and displace their populations. I think your spider is female from the roundness of the abdomen. The males spend their time looking for females. When they find them they mate quickly and die or get killed or they sit nearby waiting for their opportunity timidly. There’s a… Read more »
Ya, brown widow.
Thanks for the info. I looked up the brown widow on the ol’ google machine and the pictures do look very similar to the specimen pictured here. According to an article HERE the brown widow’s territory in California is restricted to Southern California. I’m in Northern California. It is possible that this spider hitch hiked in on an Amazon package from So Cal though. She was found in my garbage can where some Amazon boxes had recently been disposed of. Although, another thing that the article mentions is that the brown widow, and juvenile black widow, look very similar. I… Read more »