Red widow
The red widow is a very colourful spider with bright red legs and a red orange front. Its round black body has red spots outlined in yellow. It lives only in one special sandy place in Florida.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Unlike the black widow, it does not have a red hourglass on its belly. It has one or two small red marks instead.
The girl spider is about twice as big as the boy.
It builds its tangled web in palmetto bushes, with a little funnel hideout underneath.
It keeps its egg sacs safe inside its funnel hideout.
It is named after Marshall Bishop, the man who collected the first spiders that scientists studied.
Most asked questions about Red widow
?Where does the red widow live?
Only in central and southern Florida, in dry sandy places with sand pine trees and palmetto bushes.
?Is the red widow rare?
Yes. It lives in a very small area, and it is listed as a threatened species in the United States.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Latrodectus bishopi
- Named by
- Kaston, 1938
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Theridiidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Theridiidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Red widow spider
Where the facts come from
- Latrodectus bishopi (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 Stevenklioze00. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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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