Black Widow Scare

I had a little adventure this week. There was a spider trapped between the windowpane and the screen on our kitchen window a few days ago. Since it's close to Halloween, I decided it looked eerie and that I would spare it. After all, it wasn't able to get inside, and even though I don't like spiders, it was killing bugs that got trapped there with it.

It turned out, as I looked at it over the next few days, I noticed that it was a black spider with red spots on it's back. (Because of the light shining on it, the legs looked brown when I first noticed the spider.) I didn't think black widows typically had red spots on their backs, but I decided to look it up. The internet is a wonderful tool for knowledge. It turned out that spider was a black widow, and there are six species of black widow living in the South. As soon as I inspected it further, I saw it spin around on it's web and it had the hour glass shape on it's underbelly, a female, the dangerous kind.

That's right, it would be a black widow that I would decide to spare. Needless to say, the spider isn't with us anymore. Finding out that my friend in the windowpane could've killed (or at least really hurt) one of us in one bite meant the safety of my family had to come first. So, long story short we sprayed it with bug spray last night through the screen and it was dead this morning. It's odd, but I"m kind of sad about it. Still, it had to be done. I shouldn't feel too bad though, one black widow usually means there are five hundred somewhere else. Wish me luck that I don't run into one again.