senoritafish | Black and red... (Reply)

My kids kept telling me there was a black widow behind the entertainment center. They're inclined to be a bit overdramatic (Gareth yelled to me the other day that "Avalon is pulling out my organs" when his sister was bugging him), and we have lots of cellar spiders that find their way indoors, so I was skeptical until I went and got a flashlight.

(Check out the large size on Flickr for more detail)

Yikes. I expect to run into these gals outside, but not behind my CD cupboard. This piece of furniture was sitting on the patio for awhile, so it's possible she could've stowed away inside it.

The Bug Vacuum they got for Christmas came in handy, as I certainly didn't want to handle her with my bare hands. I found it could really use a more powerful motor though; I was only able to get her inside by maneuvering the opening against the wall and giving the nozzle a sharp tap. It was interesting getting a close up look at her. In the light, her upper surface had a kind of metallic reddish iridescence, but only at cetain angles, and I was unable to capture it with the camera...

My father reccomended flushing her down the toilet, but I didn't want to kill her. I also didn't want her somewhere where people could come across her easily, so I released her in a planting of ivy and pine trees near the civic center a block away from my house. There's a 10' wall on one side and the driveway into the police station on the other, so no foot traffic through there and hopefully lots of hidey holes for her.

Maybe I should've taken her to the Aquarium; they've got a display of venomous creatures right now including several black widows who've spun their webs inside a bucket...

(cross-posted to