Common name : Black widow
Scientific name : Latrodectus mactans
Family : Theridiidae
Native to : Temperate climates (U.S.A., Southern Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, South America)
Interesting fact : They are known as black widow spiders not only because of their appearance but also the queer fact that the female kills and eats the male after mating.
While the females are at least 1.5 inches in length, the males are much smaller and lighter coloured. They create their webs generally in dark sheltered areas. Their diet includes grasshoppers, flies, mosquitoes, beetles and caterpillars. They first wrap their prey in silk webbing then puncture them with enzymes which liquefy them. The female produces a paper-like sack which contains 200-900 eggs, which hatch after 30 days.
