An angry Black Widow

I was packing my prospecting equipment into my car when I spotted a large tangle of spider webs on my drywasher blower. Sure enough a very large female Black Widow (Latrodectus hesperus) had made its home in the cowling.

These spiders can commonly found in dark and hidden spots but their webs are tangled and haphazard messes which are easy to spot and you always need to be on the lookout for these very poisonous spiders if you spot the webs.

The Black Widow of this size is easy to recognize, especially if you can spot the classic red "hourglass" marking on the females abdomen.

Not a creature that you'd want to tangle with as the Black Widow venom is a potent neurotoxin and their bites can be very severe but usually aren't fatal (I've seen a couple of patients with their bites and they were quite ill from the effects).