Black Widow Bites, Two For One Sale! lofi

Black Widow Bites, Two For One Sale!


WARNING: Free handling Latrodectus species spiders is probably a really bad idea. Common species possess venom that is more damaging than that of common USA rattle snakes, milliliter for milliliter. An envenomation is not likely to kill a healthy adult, but small people or people with pre-existing medical conditions could find themselves in BAD trouble. It is a good idea for anyone bitten by Latrodectus to seek medical attention.

Spoiler located at end of this text.

Latrodectus is a gneus of spider found all over the world. In the USA its representative species are commonly known as widows... there are three species of mainly black widows (L. hesperus, western black widow; L. mactans, southern black widow; L. variolus, northern black widow), one species of red widow found only in Florida (L. bishopi), and one somewhat recently introduced species of brown widow, L. geometricus. In africa they are known as button spiders and in australia they are known as redback spiders. Most species tend to be featureless black, though there are sometimes dramatic exceptions. L. bishopi has a red body with a wildly colored abdomen done in browns, whites, and yellows in spots and lines. L. pallidus, the white widow, is a cream colored spider found in the middle east. There is a species of Latrodectus from Laos affectionately known as the Hellfire Widow because of the flame decal-esque red coloration on the beautiful black body.

The spider featured in this video is either L. hesperus or L. geometricus... i am leaning toward geo at this point. At that size my experience has been that hesperus has much less wild coloration and more regularily colored legs. L. hesperus has a pretty wide range of coloration, especially when they are immature, so it is hard to known for sure what species i was dealing with based only on gross macroscopic observation of the spider. One easy way to tell the brown species from the three black species is by their eggsacs. The three black USA species all make essentially smooth, tear drop shaped eggsacs. L. geometricus makes globular to tear drop shaped eggsacs... but they are covered with dozens of spikes or extrusions. Geo's do not achieve the size of hesperus, and probably never reach over 2"/5cm diagonal leg span... and are much more regularily in the 1"/2.5cm to 1.5"/3.8cm DLS. It is disappointing to see the geometricus species spreading across the world. They are consummate survivors and are likely out competing native species that live in the same niche as them. Latrodectus genus is a member of the Theridiidae family... also known as comb-foot spiders. These comb-feet are special hairs/spines on their back legs that allow them to throw their webbing onto their prey for subduction and their predators for defensive purposes. The only silver lining to the cloud of geo's descendnig on the world is that they are likely not as human reactively venomous as many of their cousin species. Brown widows are not as strongly reactive as any of the three USA black species, but are still a serious animal to be envenomated by. In the case of envenomation professional medical assistance is probably in order.


[Uploaded from a 40MB WMV file]


SPOILER: I did get bit at least once, likely twice. Neither bite seems to have resulted in an envenomation. Generally speaking, widows are not inclined to "wet" bite, that is to inject venom, for a low priority defensive bite. Latrodectus venoms are insanely complex, giant molecules that are quite expensive for the spiders to manufacture. If the spider is not in immediate risk of death it is much more likely for them to dry bite... BUT this is not a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination!

I apologize about the audio desync. I only use free programs to edit and produce my videos and they don't seem to work great all the time :/

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Latrodectus
• hesperus
• geometricus
• black
• brown
• widow
• spider
• bite
• venom
• envenomation
• Latrodectism
• Araneaism
• Arachnidism

[green2lean]

Okay, are you still alive today July 20th, 2010? I mean who knows with the way you test fate :)

Was that spider carrying an egg sack? Also I noticed you had a still frame of a male black widow in this video. Was that spider also at the scene or what was that picture for?

I live in Texas and at our land there are many black widows. They are very big too. This is Texas after all. They always seem to build nests right where you'd stick your hand without looking too.

[cacoseraph]

@green2lean the still pic is of the spider i was playing with in the video. it was not a male, as it was far too large. i am leaning towards it being a female brown adult

[lweigle]

well androcontus have a very powerful sting so your lucky they dont have the effect they have on some people witch is death but ya iv heard of a bunch of cases where and adrocontus sting or a very deadly scorpion sting have mostly resulted in sickening feeling and localized pain

[cacoseraph]

ha, anUroctonus... they are wimpy

[lweigle]

oh my bad i thought you said androcontus that was my dyslexia for ya

[cacoseraph]

no worries. definitely not the first time someone made that mistake :)

[green2lean]

@cacoseraph, okay, my mistake. The coloring threw me off, but now that I have researched it an immature black widow has this coloring and after she mates she turns black. At least that's what I read and it did have pictures. I will message you the link.

[kevinbeatzeus]

Squash that shit!

[SteveGad]

Hey I've got a great idea, let's torment a Black Widow spider.

I'll give you this much buddy, you've got balls of stainless steel..

Great show.

[cacoseraph]

well, i might have a boosted immune system from fighting germs from all the bites, cuts, and scrapes i get from bugs and bug hunting...

but in fact i am weaker against scorp venom than an average person... i loose bits of skin from a good sting by species that don't do much of anything to virtually everyone else :) (Anuroctonus sp. kill wafers of my skin when they sting me now)

thanks for watching and the comment, dude