Black Widow, Friend or foe?

[Southern28Chick]

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Ahh, you totally rock, Trisha! I love Black Widows, they are so beautiful. Im a huge spider fan. I agree with you 100% though. Im the person who catches all of the bugs in the house while my dad, brother or mom are standing down the hall screaming like babies,lol. No senseless killing here either! Well, no killing! LOL!

Thank you my dear! I don't kill ANYTHING and I do mean anything. If there's a bug in my house I put it outside, even moths that fly in at night. I run around the house like a crazy person until I catch it and can get it back outside before my cats get him. Me and my cat Smokey have had many races to catch bugs. Silly huh?

I am however just fine with the Black Widow eating flies. It's the natural order of things and those flies are terrible this year. I saw like 30 on one lil chicken poop today!

 

[Southern28Chick]

Quote:
I don't kill anything. I've never killed a snake. What are you refering to?

 

[ZykloniaDark-GothikRanchr]

I have so many black widows in my garage, I talk to them while I am working

I also have a ton of wolf spiders (Giant ones) that I always think are mice when I see them out of the corner of my eye!! I leave them alone, they leave me alone. I love spiders so I would say friend!! I have a jar full of black widows that I caught for my jewelry, and those girls lived for almost a MONTH with no air!!!!! Most of the ones I have are brownish though. spiders, bats and snakes...gardener's friends!!!

 

[Southern28Chick]

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[Bec]

I don't kill anything either, I get them in a cup, cover the top with paper so they don't escape in transit and I let them go outside. Unless it is winter, then I just put them in the barn or shed. We don't have a black widows here, just common spiders. If you didn't want her there, you could kindly move her to another area safe for everyone.

 

[theOEGBman]

Quote:
Ahh, you totally rock, Trisha! I love Black Widows, they are so beautiful. Im a huge spider fan. I agree with you 100% though. Im the person who catches all of the bugs in the house while my dad, brother or mom are standing down the hall screaming like babies,lol. No senseless killing here either! Well, no killing! LOL!

Thank you my dear! I don't kill ANYTHING and I do mean anything. If there's a bug in my house I put it outside, even moths that fly in at night. I run around the house like a crazy person until I catch it and can get it back outside before my cats get him. Me and my cat Smokey have had many races to catch bugs. Silly huh?

I am however just fine with the Black Widow eating flies. It's the natural order of things and those flies are terrible this year. I saw like 30 on one lil chicken poop today!

Doesnt sound silly at all, it sounds like me!!

I sometimes have crickets get loose from my Bearded Dragon tank and they will go crawling up walls and my family will freak, so Im used to catching bugs on the run! I follow the uh... Everything has a part in the Ecosystem deal. I dont kill anything, because they all benefit me in some way, even if Im not sure how,lol.

 

[ncgnance]

I'm with my native american brothers on this one. To some tribes, spiders were known as "tricksters" and were to be dispatched of with much noise and shouting, (don't ask me why) and that's exactly what I do...with much screaming and stomping, and shivering. I am terrified of them, even the itty bitty ones. There are several kinds of widows, about 5, I think. And the bite of a black widow is very dangerous, expecially to children. They tend to hang out in dark, damp places, like pump houses and under houses, but if you get too close you will get bit. One of my nephews carries a large, white scar from a black widow bite that almost killed him when he was about 2 years old. No, there are plenty of other things that will take care of the flies..I don't want spiders around me..

 

[dacjohns]

Quote:
I don't kill anything. I've never killed a snake. What are you refering to?

Some of the Predator threads.

 

[redhen]

will a widow spider bite harm a chicken?..Wendy

 

[WriterofWords]

They are beautiful but should not be in the area of humans or animals. We had a 5th grade student bitten this year, he went to hospital, received anti-venom but still suffered horribly due to swelling and pain. They are not a joking matter at all.
Thought you might like to read this:

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 a point where it can be harmful. The males, being much smaller, inject 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 1990. 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%[7] 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. There have been incidents in Sweden and Denmark with black widow spiders being found in cars imported from the southern U.S.[8][9]

There are a number of active components in the venom:

Latrotoxins
A number of smaller polypeptides - toxins interacting with cation channels which display spatial structure homology - which can affect the functioning of calcium, sodium, or potassium channels.
Adenosine
Guanosine
Inosine
2,4,6-trihydroxypurine.
The venom is neurotoxic.[5]

As with many venomous creatures, the brightly colored markings serve as a warning to predators. Eating a black widow will normally not kill a small predator (birds, et cetera), but the sickness that follows digestion is enough for the creature to remember that the bright red marking means "do not eat."