Book Review: Black Widow Spiders by Joanne Randolph, Nightmare Creatures: Spiders! Series Title #1

Black widow spiders generally entertain adult lengths of 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters). Prey and viewers additionally find intimidating the black widow's: 

• four sets of legs with oil-coated tips for scaling sticky web strands and with bristled, comb-footed, heavy back-legs for silk-wrapping food; 
• set of leg-like mouth-parts; 
• set of small leg-like pedipalps for assisting in feeding, mating, and moving; and
• two rows of four low-vision eyes. 

Black widow spiders indeed get bad reputations because of post-mating and web-making behaviors. All 32 extra-polar species have messy, sticky webs separated into supportive upper threads, tangled middle threads, and vertical-trap lower threads; and spun in basements, burrows, logs, sheds, and woodpiles. The female is known for devouring males during mating seasons. 

Female black widow spiders join 200 eggs into pear-shaped, silken sacs. Scientists know that black widow spider cocoon and web silk are sufficiently strong to include among their applications service as crosshairs for the United States of America's guns during World War II (September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945). The cocoons last 30 days after hatch-time to let hatchlings increase size, skills, and strength before leaving their mother and her special web for holding egg sacs in place. Hatchlings mature into spiderlings, which mature into adults whose hanging upside-down in the middle of night-monitored food webs may be mimicked by less poisonous species, such as: 

• brown widow spiders (Lactrodectus geometricus); and 
• false widow spiders (Steatoda spp). 

Viewers generally notice black widow spiders busy at:

• biting, hiding, jumping, or playing; or
• keeping beetle, caterpillar, fly, and grasshopper populations manageable.

They thereby observe collateral damage to people and pets during life cycles and natural histories in beneficial niches within predator - prey food chains, as elucidated in the PowerKids Press-released, 2014-published Black Widow Spiders of: 

• book designer Andrew Povolny; 
• editors Norman D. Graubart and Jennifer Way; 
• photo researcher Katie Stryker; 
• photographers Brian Chase, Arman Davtyan, E.R. Degginger, Robinson James, Jessica Lewis, Hway Kiong Lim, Pete Pattavina, Colton Stiffler, Les Stocker, Keith Szafranski, Peter Waters; 
• The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.'s Nightmare Creatures: Spiders! series for third- to seventh-graders aged 8 to 12; and 
• writer Joanne Randolph. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

scarily extensive distribution of black widow spiders
Latrodectus map after map in Herbert W. Levi and Lorna R. Levi, Spiders and Their Kin (Golden Press, 1990): Patrick Edwin Moran, CC BY SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Latrodectus_map.png

Black widow spider (Latrodectus hesperus) living in flower pot with egg sac (left center)
Los Angeles, southern California: Jengod, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black-widow-hourglass-eggsac-flowerpot.jpg

orange hourglass marking on ventral (under) side of brown widow spider (Latrodectus geometricus)
Less poisonous than black widows, brown widow spiders may mimic their more lethal relative's proclivity for hanging upside down in food webs.
captured and photographed in Los Angeles, southern California: Mfield, Matthew Field, http://www.photography.mattfield.com, GNUFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brown_widow_spider_Latrodectus_geometricus_underside.jpg

female Northern Black Widow Spider (Latrodectus variolus)
collected in Beltsville, Prince George's County, southern Maryland, by Jessica Zelt: USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab (Sam Droege), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/9005967621/

Remaining undaunted by black widow spiders, mud daubers have no qualms about Latrodectus confrontations.
black and yellow mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium)
Fronton, Haute-Garonne, southwestern France: Didier Descouens, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sceliphron_caementarium_MHNT_Profil.jpg

Western black widow (Latrodectus mactans) spiders range through western United States, as well as into southwestern Canada and much of Mexico.
Western black widow displays signature hourglass.: Konrad Summers (tkksummers), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/tkksummers/2800388371/

Randolph, Joanne. 2014. Black Widow Spiders. PowerKids Press: Nightmare Creatures: Spiders! Series Title #1. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.