Western Male Black Widow: We found this male and female along the trail. I could not see her red hour glass, but was more interested in the male. I did not think they were Widows until...

dnote627 Loc: I live in Western CO but from Western NC

We found this male and female along the trail. I could not see her red hour glass, but was more interested in the male. I did not think they were Widows until I got home and looked him up. What neat markings, but glad I had the 100mm and was a couple feet away. They were hiding in plain site.

Lots of eggs
Lots of eggs...

JoAnneK01 Loc: Lahaina, Hawaii

Excellent shots. Glad you were a distance away from them. Had never seen them at this stage before. Mahalo for sharing.

SteveInConverse Loc: South Texas

Kill it with fire!

Sinewsworn Loc: Port Orchard, WA

dnote627 wrote:

We found this male and female along the trail. I could not see her red hour glass, but was more interested in the male. I did not think they were Widows until I got home and looked him up. What neat markings, but glad I had the 100mm and was a couple feet away. They were hiding in plain site.

Nice set! Thanx for sharing!

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Yes, the title "Lots of Eggs" is appropriate ... but I miss read it as "Lots of Legs" because my Mind/Eye saw that. Big mama and her little boyfriend who eventually will be eaten.

The article discusses how the male avoids being cannibalized after mating... we humans males can take lessons from nature.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/animals-spiders-black-widows-cannibals

Interesting find, and interesting shot dnote627

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Well done!

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

jonsommer Loc: Usually, somewhere on the U.S. west coast.

You are brave and wise indeed as black widows in this area are known to pole vault!

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

dnote627 wrote:

We found this male and female along the trail. I could not see her red hour glass, but was more interested in the male. I did not think they were Widows until I got home and looked him up. What neat markings, but glad I had the 100mm and was a couple feet away. They were hiding in plain site.

Arachnophobically scary 🖤🤯🖤🤯🖤

jederick Loc: Northern Utah

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Nice find..!

RoswellAlien

Great! Thank you. (Hope you left them alone.)

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Beautiful shots. Personally I have never met an aggressive Black Widow but I have never stuck my finger in the web either

Moondoggie Loc: Southern California

Very cool images. Thanks for sharing.

relbugman Loc: MD/FL/CA/SC

Thanks to dnote627 for the fine shots [are there babies below?], and Donald dpullum for the link on Widow mating – very interesting to me! Just a small problem – it reverses the captions: photo #3 (“The male brown widow (pictured)”) is actually an immature female, and photo # 4 (“A female brown widow tends to her web.”) is the male, note the enlarged pedipalps. (It happens!)
Would that nature be so easily explained. Other factors are also in play: a hungry female may lay less eggs and experience more egg mortality, so the meal may be important to BOTH partners’ contribution to posterity; as females may lay 10+ egg sacs from only one mating, she may weather a paucity of males, but evenso, added matings may strengthen the contribution of the last sacrificial male, especially if she is biased by a tasty dessert; it does mention that a male has a very slight chance of encountering a second female (exception possible for Browns), so best to keep the pregnant female healthy rather than die without further issue anyway; where food is abundant, males often take up residence in a far corner of a female’s web – in 13 webs along a sidewalk on one block in CA, 7 had resident males, one even had two! And more, I’m sure.