About a month ago I did a post on the Brown Recluse and the Black Widow. I have discovered an interesting article on widow spiders so I am publishing a link to it for those who are interested.
It is in Science in Africa a great online magazine.
The Button Spiders of Southern Africa .
Filed under: Spiders | Tagged: Latrodectus |
Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution, and Science 
When I worked at UC Santa Cruz, my office was in a building on the edge of the redwood forests and the great meadow. We had lots of wildlife — that mostly stayed outside, but we did have a lot of spiders that came inside. I was once cleaning out the box of old inter-office envelopes that had piled up under my desk when I came across a black widow spider and egg sacs. Wow. It had been inches from my feet everyday and I didn’t know it. Very exciting. I used to take students on tours of the building, and I would point out the black widow nests, when we could find them. The students often found it creepy, but I thought it was so interesting. When we found rats in the building, well that was a different story entirely. Now that was creepy.
The spiders would have given me the heebe jeebe’s. Especially, just inches from my feet.Yikes! Had to look under my desk as I typed this (really, I did)and I don’t think I’ll be putting them under my desk anymore. Rats I can deal with.