Yahoo Autos Black Widow Spiders Are Getting Slaughtered by Aggressive Brown Widows
Black widow spiders across the southern United States are getting eaten up by brown widows, their lesser-known cousins, according to new research investigating the relationship between the two arachnids.
Three species of black widow are native to the United States; brown widows are believed to be native to Africa but are now present on all continents but Antarctica.
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While black widows are a shy spider species—only getting aggressive when they are pinched or pressed—brown widows seek out black widows to bite. Bit(e) by bit(e), in a pattern first noticed a decade ago, the black widow spiders are being displaced by the interlopers. The team’s research is published today in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America.
Widow spiders have a bad rap for their venomous bites, which can be very painful to humans but rarely cause death. The species like to weave their haphazard cobwebs in urban and suburban environments (think garden sheds or under the sink), putting them in regular proximity to humankind.
“Brown widows are not labeled invasive. They’re still non-native,” said study lead author Louis Coticchio, a spider biologist specializing in the widow and recluse families, in a phone call with Gizmodo. “If it does come out that the introduction of brown widows is absolutely the main reason why we’re seeing a huge decline in black widow populations, I would love to see the attitude towards them changed.”
In 2018, researchers found that northern black widows (Latrodectus variolus) were expanding their range northward; in the west and south, it appears their world is shrinking due to the aggressive incursions by the brown spiders.
