Lesson 27: Observing Black Widow Spiders

           Black Widows are very poisonous spiders that are part of the widow spider species in the Theridiidae family of spiders. There are about 2,200 types of widow spiders. The kind we see the most often in the U.S. are black widows. Female black widows are shiny black with a red hourglass shape on their abdomen. Male black widows are lighter brown in color and smaller than the females. They are poisonous and use their venom to kill prey or protect themselves. When an insect gets caught in a black widow’s web, the spider comes over and quickly wraps the insect in a silk cocoon made from their web. After they wrap the insect, they bite it and inject the poisonous venom to kill it. I liked learning about black widow spiders, especially since I have seen a few of them around my house.