Authored by Rodney Southern in Nature and Wildlife
Published on 03-01-2009
It would be difficult to find a human being in North America that has no knowledge of the black widow spider. Virtually everyone has heard the stories and developed some type of aversion to this dangerous, potentially deadly spider. While the black widow has a very fearsome reputation, the truth is that it is actually a very reclusive arachnid. This is one of many things that people do not understand about the black widow spider.
Another common misconception about the black widow spider is that it wants to bite us. The truth is the complete opposite. The black widow spider would much rather stay far away from human beings, and they bite only as a defensive last resort. To the black widow spider, we are a giant predator that is out to hurt them. It is likely that they have no clue that they have the power to harm us.
Also, the black widow has a limited amount of it’s deadly venom, and wasting it on something that it will not get to eat is not what it wants. It would much rather save that venom for a tasty moth, or other assorted meals. When a black widow bites a prey item, it turns the insides of the prey into a soup of sorts. The black widow then “drinks” the insides of the prey. When it bites a human, it is always out of fear of us or protection of it’s lair.
The black widow bite is also a bit misunderstood. While the black widow spider bite is a serious one, it is generally not as deadly as people seem to think. The black widow spider bite is a serious medical emergency, and should be treated as such. In spite of the need for medical attention, the bite is usually not fatal. The bite will certainly make you very sick, and an untreated black widow bite can kill you in certain cases. Generally those cases that are fatal are reserved for unhealthy individuals, older people, and children. Even in these situations, the black widow bite is rarely fatal.
While this spider has the worst reputation of the North American spiders, it is actually a big help for us on the whole. This spider kills enormous amounts of pests in and around our world, and without them we would surely see the difference. Still, they are dangerous enough that you must keep them away from your home.
There are a number of spiders in the world that are seriously deadly, but the black widow just barely makes the list. It is not the monster spider that people make it out to be, and will avoid us whenever possible. It is instead one of the many wonders of nature that we must respect and admire from a distance.
