Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Found this girl today from my firewood pile. Thought the cold would have got to them by now. Anyway, put her in a deli cup with some soil, cork bark, and a cap of water. Would this be a southern or northren black widow? Location is Central/Eastern Virginia. Thanks in advance.

Steve

.

it's a Southern Black Widow, judging by the hourglass. Someone had posted further down a good website that shows the different widows, and their geographic range. From what I could tell,looks like Virginia has both the Northern & Southern species. Interesting.
Steve

This link may be helpful:

http://kaston.transy.edu/widow.html

To me, it resembles the right hand example of the northern widow, only with the two halves connected. I have seen a northern widow with a connected hourglass ( In Michigan, where as far as I know there is ONLY the northern widow). I'd do some more research however. Try browsing this forum, or using the search function here. There is a post not too far down the page called something like "Oklahoma widow ID"--it may be a helpful thread. Basically, I'd just search around here, and other sites and look at examples of both species. Search black widow in the yahoo photo gallery.