Latrodectus hesperus - Western Black Widow

[edie]

Whenever I see widows in our garage or outside around the house I try to remove them since my stepdad sprays both those areas. I found this widow a couple weeks ago in the garage and left it alone until I heard my stepdad almost stepped on it a couple days ago - my sister told him I would take care of it so I moved it today. Thought I would share pictures of the removal!

And let me add that I do not promote people removing/dealing with these spiders unless they know what they are doing! These spiders (in my experience) have been easy to remove safely, but if someone doesn't have prior experience with other types of non-threatening spiders a widow is probably not the best place to start. All of the widows I have removed never showed any signs of aggressive behavior and most played dead at one or more stages of the removal which makes things very easy for me.

She was nesting up in the corner of the garage on the celling, the web led all the way down to the floor so the first thing I did was destroy the web leaving a 2 inch square around where she was curled up.



After I started to remove the web she immediately curled up



After that I got on a ladder I tried to separate the eggs from where she was, she got a little annoyed at that so I decided to use the broom to gently remove the eggs just in case she did decide to drop - I didn't want to be too close.





After I got the eggs down she got herself into the edge of the wall - I tried gently coaxing her to the middle of the celling with the broom so I could place a vase around where she was but she dropped instead.



After she dropped I gently blew on her which made her play dead, this allowed me to easily place a clear cup over here and slide thick paper under the cup then tip the cup over making sure the paper was held tight to the cup.







After getting her in the cup I took her out to the hay barn.



She played dead on the walk over and when I dropped her on the side of the barn.



After a little coaxing with the plastic knife I had with me she got up and ran under some barrels - thats the only time she ran while I was removing her. They are very fast!



The end! I've taken some out of more complicated places but this was my first one removed from a high place, and the only time I have ever used a broom, it worked out pretty nicely.

And as an added bonus.. I found this dead cicada outside of the garage

[littleindiangirl]

Neato, I like spiders that aren't all fuzzy. I feel better about them somehow.

That wings on the cicada are pretty cool looking.

[edie]

Neato, I like spiders that aren't all fuzzy. I feel better about them somehow.

That wings on the cicada are pretty cool looking.

I usually hear the opposite, all my friends used to like my tarantulas because they looked more like hamsters than spiders since they were so fuzzy. Most of the time shiny spiders creep me out, but I like widows a lot, they're pretty spiders.

I always hope to find a live cicada to photograph, I can always hear them but I don't know where they are.. it drives me crazy. I might bring that one inside and put it in a frame if the ants haven't gotten to it yet

[andwhy6]

thats unusual that you found it in the corner of the garage. they usually stay in places that are very dark for a long period of time and have large unorganized webs. pretty cool tho! i would have prob kept it... i would rather have a dangerous pet than a dangerous insect roaming around out by the barn. its all good tho

[edie]

thats unusual that you found it in the corner of the garage. they usually stay in places that are very dark for a long period of time and have large unorganized webs. pretty cool tho! i would have prob kept it... i would rather have a dangerous pet than a dangerous insect roaming around out by the barn. its all good tho

I know they usually do that. The ones around here usually make their nest in broken fence posts or cracks in our fence walls and have the web outside of it which makes it hard to catch them since they sometimes get in the fence post before I can tear the web there. The garage I found her in is a new garage and no one ever really uses it, it is the only time I've ever seen a widows web so exposed, she did have her 2 egg sacks bunched up there though and she was curled up behind them which makes a little more sense, she was pretty covered before I started tearing the web. I have kept around 15 of them back when I still had my tarantulas. They were always nice to have around, I could take them out for pictures and they were relatively easy to get in and out of the cages and none of them tried to run off.

Just keeping that one widow instead of placing it back by our barn would do nothing to the widow population on our property, so it doesn't worry me at all.

[Michelle.C]

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to edie again"

There needs to be more people like you in this world. Willing to remove these beautiful creatures instead of smooshing them.

We had dozens of Latrodectus mactans in Missouri, I really got a good education on them. Very beautiful and quite docile.

[edie]

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to edie again"

There needs to be more people like you in this world. Willing to remove these beautiful creatures instead of smooshing them.

We had dozens of Latrodectus mactans in Missouri, I really got a good education on them. Very beautiful and quite docile.

Thank you! I love widows, I think if I ever got back into keeping arachnids I would like to get a couple different kinds of widows, I miss the ones I had a couple years ago.

I don't get too many widows, but I'm always removing barks that are indoors. When I was in high school there were barks everywhere.. I would always be the one to go get one on a piece of paper then try to balance the little guys from running off while trying to get them outside

[python.princess]

those egg sacs are huge! widows are absolutely beautiful as spiders go!

The cicada has a cute lil face!

[edie]

those egg sacs are huge! widows are absolutely beautiful as spiders go!

The cicada has a cute lil face!

There are so many kinds of widows too, I think they are all lovely. That widow was doing pretty well for herself in that garage, she was probably one of the fatter ones I've seen in outdoors.