Southern Black Widow (Latrodectus mactans)

macro, wildlife, wildlife photography

This southern black widow was found at Sand Prairie Conservation Area in Scott County MO. Quite unusually, she had built a web in the open within the tallest branches of a Polygonum americanum (American jointweed), where she had just dispatched a Dielis plumipes (Feather-legged Scoliid Wasp).

This southern black widow female was found wrapping up her prey, a feather-legged scoliid wasp at Sand Prairie C. A.
My shadow cast as I took photos caused her to head for cover.
I also found a male southern black widow moving about the boundaries of the female’s web.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s