Mediterranean black widow
The Mediterranean black widow is a shiny black spider with thirteen little red spots on its round back. It lives in dry grassy places and fields around the Mediterranean Sea and in Central Asia. It is shy, but it is one of the spiders that you must never touch.
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Fun facts
Its scientific name means with thirteen spots. The spots are usually red, but can be yellow or orange.
In Kazakhstan it is called karakurt, which means black bug.
The famous bug scientist Fabre wrote about watching it rush at insects bigger than itself.
Most asked questions about Mediterranean black widow
?How can you recognise a Mediterranean black widow?
It is black with thirteen spots on its back, usually red.
?How big is the Mediterranean black widow?
Females are about 7 to 15 millimetres long. Males are smaller, about 4 to 7 millimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Latrodectus tredecimguttatus
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Theridiidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Theridiidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- European black widow, Karakurt, Malmignatte
Where the facts come from
- Latrodectus tredecimguttatus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by No machine-readable author provided. Kork~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims).. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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