Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is a spider I found while out herping. It has the body shape of a black widow, but the colors are all wrong. A very cool looking spider nontheless. We have some spiders here around my house that look just like black widows, but dont have the hourglass under the abdomen. They have a red mark, and some on the top of the abdomen as well. I can post a pic or two of those as well.

The question I have, are there subspecies of black widows or color variants? As this one here has the exact same body build as a black widow. It was found under a rock and its web was a typical black widow web, very tough compared to house spiders etc.

Thanks in advance.

Thats a very interesting looking spider...

..

northern widow. Any confirmations??

It is definitely a juvenile widow. What state do you live in?

This site has a pic of an immature southern widow:

http://www.rochedalss.eq.edu.au/commonspidersusa.htm

I'm inclined to say that it's either the northern ( Latrodectus variolus ), or the western widow (Latrodectus hesperus ), but ID does depend partly on where you live.

and we have alot of black widows around my house as well. I live out in the county and have lots of shade trees on our property. This keeps it cooler year round, and we are surrounded by woods.