Black Widow Spiders

The most distinctive element that will help you identify the Black Widow is the red mark on the underside of the female spider. Males also have this pattern in the same place, but it can be red or pink. Here are other features to help you identify Black Widows.

Color: Male and female black widows have distinctive colors. Females have a shiny black body, while males have a reddish-brown or dark body.

Size: Females measure up to 1.5 inches, while males are typically about half that size. 

Bodily Features: Nearly all black widow females have the hour-glass-shape pattern under the abdomen. Males are smaller in size but have long legs. All black widow spiders have curved feet covered with bristles and are known for making irregular and messy webs.

Habitat: The black widow spider habitat is usually outdoors, but they’re also capable of living inside homes if the conditions are right. Outside, they are often found in protected areas such as under pieces of wood, stones, rodent burrows, woodpiles, and hollow tree stumps. Inside the house, you’ll find these spiders in quiet and rarely disturbed places such as the basement, cluttered boxes, and storage areas.

Diet: Black widows eat flying and climbing insects, and thanks to their strong venom they’ve even been seen trapping small vertebrates such as lizards and snakes.

As their name suggests, female black widows are known to sometimes eat male black widows after mating, but this is not true of all the black widow species, and not nearly as common as most people might think. This behavior is also not exclusive to black widows, there are several other species that are known to occasionally cannibalize the males after the mating process.