The dangerous black widow

[RenatoSosua]

The spider is in the East and could be fatal .

source in Spanish:

Detectan la peligrosa viuda negra - ElNacional.com.do

[donP]

Originally Posted by RenatoSosua

The spider is in the East and could be fatal .

... but also have welcome side effects.

"Además, uno de los efectos colaterales del veneno de la viuda negra es la producción de prolongadas erecciones en los varones (priapismo)."

[Hillbilly]

oH GET A GRIP...Black widows are endemic here, so what??? They are extremely rare, very timid and totally not aggessive.

I have seen 1 in almost 50 years and one of my boys saw another and called to ask me about it..

They live in dark, dank places and do not hunt for prey...

Now, putting your hand or feet into dark, dank places might be fun for some people (yeah, I won't go there!!), but in the tropics, it is stupid...

So do not get all upset about this...

HB

[Tropicdude]

Originally Posted by donP

... but also have welcome side effects.

"Además, uno de los efectos colaterales del veneno de la viuda negra es la producción de prolongadas erecciones en los varones (priapismo)."

Well rigor mortis is not the best way to get a stiffy

[waytogo]

I lived in Phoenix Arizona for 30 years and Black Widow spiders are plentiful. Not only is their bite painful and venomous, it can also be fatal to small children and the elderly. They are easily identifiable by their large shiny black body with a red hourglass on their belly. They move extremely slow and travel large distances through the trees by their web in the wind. For those that don´t know, the reason they are called Black Widows is because they eat the male for food after mating. When bitten, you will get a large patch of black dead skin that never goes away. I HATE SPIDERS...A LOT

[Chip]

I have never sen a black widow here, but the brown widows appear to be plentiful.

They are all over the SE US and I have never been bitten. In fact, at my mom's home they had to have the crawlspace under the house fumigated because it had become overun with black widows, even though I had spent about an hour working there the week before!

[pyratt]

Having grown up in the tropics the first thing we were taught before tying our shoes...was to tap them out before putting them on...scorpions, spiders, roaches...whom ever moved in overnight, would be bounced out before we slid our foot in.