Brown Widows are taking over my backyard

[Z-TARD]

Found this in my backyard today:

 

 

It's a Brown Widow. Originally from South Africa from what I've read online. They seem to be taking over my backyard lately. This is definitely not the first one I've seen, although it does have the nicest paint job. A year ago, I was excited when I found one of these because they were considered kind of rare. Now they seem to be everywhere, and the Black Widows that I used to see all over my yard are now gone. I can pretty much go out in my yard now and find one of these under every flower pot and lawn chair. They seem to like my BBQ grill as well. Out of curiosity, I caught one and have kept it in a terrarium in my garage. I'm feeding it crickets and caterpillars to see how big it will get. So far, the body is about 3/8" in diameter and the leg spread is around 1 3/4". I think once my son is old enough to play outside though, I will probably begin a campaign of genocide against these guys using a propane torch. They are supposedly twice as venomous as Black Widow's. I'd rather not take the chance of having my kid bitten.

[m4xwellmurd3r]

at first i thought you said brown WINDOW like, burnt looking windows. but then I saw the pic. I wonder if a few brown widows snuck into your yard and killed off/hybridized with the black widow population.

[BurnoutZ]

Interesting... wonder how it got over here....

[m4xwellmurd3r]

Interesting... wonder how it got over here....

Probably the same way most exotic critters find their way here, through importation of goods. It must've hitched a ride from somewhere, then possibly one of them had babies, and some of them must've hitched a kite ride to his yard

[Z-TARD]

Found this on the local museums website after I found the first spider in my yard last year:

 

http://www.sdnhm.org/fieldguide/inverts/latr-geo.html

 

It doesn't have any explanations for the sudden loss of Black Widow's in my yard. I doubt that the Brown ones are eating or killing them, but possibly breeding faster and occupying all of the good web building sites. They seem to either produce more offspring, or their offspring manage to survive longer than Black Widow offspring. There are definitely more of the brown spiders in my yard now than there ever were of the Black Widows. The first year we lived here, I found about 4 or 5 Black Widows the entire year. I could go in my back yard now and collect 10 to 15 of these Brown Widows within about an hour. It kinda creeps me out if I think about it too much....

[CArFAn]

Put all of the brown widows in the same terrarium and see what happens. Just make sure none escape into the garage.

[AK-Z]

Are these poisonous? If not, then I say that its better to have these than black widows in foresight.

 

Ideas for extermination; fire + web = poof

[Z-TARD]

Put all of the brown widows in the same terrarium and see what happens. Just make sure none escape into the garage.

 

Good call, I might do this when I decide to serve the eviction notice on them later. Either that, or 2 at a time in the terrarium like "Thunder Dome"

[Z-TARD]

Are these poisonous? If not, then I say that its better to have these than black widows in foresight.

 

Ideas for extermination; fire + web = poof

 

Supposedly these are more venomous than the black Widow spiders, although they are supposed to also inject less venom when they bite..... I wonder who tested this theory out? Once my son is old enough to play outside, these guys had better find somewhere else to build webs.

[jerryb]

Unless the house is spider proof I would be torching them righ now! It wont make any difference to this critter if it bits you or the kid inside or outside.

 

They are not natural to this side of the world and such need to be managed. Introduced species typicaly do more harm than good.....and as you say, "they seem to be everywhere". Sounds like a problem getting worse.

 

Get em now! At least nuke the nests to slow their spread.

 

On a less serious note...all I can picture right now is that movie...Arachnaphobia

[naviathan]

I can't stand spiders. We have what the locals call Tomato Spider or Writin' Spiders around my house. I've done my best to get rid of them, but they keep coming back. Very pretty spiders though to tell the truth. They're yellow/blue/red in color with black under bodies and they make this scribble pattern in their web that's really very neat to see. Not poisonous, but none the less if these guys are around then the more common Carolina spider is bound to be near by and that is the Black Widow. Pesticides work well on the ones near the ground, but only in large doses. I have yet to figure out what kills the ones that are under the eaves of the house and in the attic vents. I'm definitely calling an exterminator when I get home to get the house "sanitized" before the baby comes.

[tannji]

Personally, I have always hated the knee-jerk reaction of some to call an exterminator to destroy a segment of the local ecology... and people who have to stomp on every spider or ant they see annoy me as well. I am usually the one that will capture and relocate whenever possible. I have done this with black widows as well. When I still lived in Colorado I had a Black Widow get into a shoe and bite me. The bit was in the morning, and I tried to ignore it most of the day, but by late afternoon I was at the hospital getting shots of valium and saline. Took about 4 hours of misery and drugs to recover. I am significantly less tolerant of venomous spiders now, especially when it may concern the kids. I dont know how practical it will be to get rid of the Brown Widows... but I would be looking into my options and especially so in the house. I wouldn't care to go though another widow experience.

[AK-Z]

bleach. chlorine in a sanitary solution is 1 table spoon to 1 gallon of water.So if you up the dosage it should kill the little buggers and the chlorine should evaporate off in a day or so.

[flames_187]

ah! get it off me!

I'm a little girl when it comes to spiders and bees...but i make up for it with big muscles...lol

 

P.S. if you get bite you can always turn into spiderman...now how cool would that be!

[MatMan]

Option 1) WD-40 and a lighter.

 

Option 2) carb/choke cleaner and a lighter.

 

With both these options, it would behoove you to have the straw attached to the nozzle for increased accuracy. I have found that both these options work well for paper wasp nests as well.

[Dragonfly]

I have run into the brown widow issue as well but I still have a population of black widows. The brown widows started showing up in force about a year ago and I even found one in the door jamb of my Z (it died very shortly after). I don't have kids or pets to worry about but I still go out about once a week at night with a flashlight and do a widow head count (location really) so that during the day I don't accidentily wake one up. I also like to keep them around as my own version of a gaurd dog (or spider in this case) because in the past couple of years the "break in" rate has gone up in my neighborhood and if some one breaks onto something of mine I will just tell myself "he must have gotten bit messing around there in the dark", and I think a judge would be hard pressed to let a thief sue me if he was bitten by a spider instead of a dog.

 

As far as the fighting in the terrarium goes you really have to bounce them into each other to get them to fight (experience speaking) other wise they will just keep thier distance from each other and do nothing.

 

Dragonfly

[e_racer1999]

holy crap! what part of SD do you guys live in?? i HATE spiders, moreso venomous spiders. i'm not hangin out with you guys anymore lol

[dscott@red3]

Shoot that thing with a .45. Outside of Spider-Man. All spiders are evil.

[Cobra_Tim]

I say once a week you take a pair and "train" them. Take plenty of pics throughout the week and even let us name them. Then come fight day, each of us chooses a spider to win. We can have our own fantasy spider fighting league with points and prizes.

[tdab]

They seem to be taking over my backyard lately.

 

If you really want them gone due to kids, pets, etc, get 'Cyper WP'. It has Cypermethrin. You mix the powder with water in any 1-2 gallon sprayer and hit any areas where you think they hang out. It kills them in a few minutes and keeps killing for a few weeks. I found several kinds of powdered cypermethrin online, but none of them would ship to SC (or several other states for some reason I can't remember). Cyper WP is the same or better than other brands but is much cheaper. I found it on ebay and they shipped it to SC no problem.

 

I did the research last summer when my 2.5 year old daughter picked up one of her sand box toys and the biggest black widow I have ever seen fell across her arm and on to the ground. My wife actually had to knock it off of her and wasn't sure at first if it bit my daughter. She called me at work and was so upset (ready to call 911) I had to take the rest of the day off. She put a cup over the top of it because she wasn't sure if it really was a black widow. The rear end of this thing was bigger than a nickel and with legs it was more than 2 inches across. After seeing it, I started looking around and killed about 15-20 within an hour or so. All of them were on egg sacks so I knew that those 15-20 wouldn't even make a dent. After I got the Cyper, I did 3 treatments at double strength in one week (they recommend once every 3 months for spiders). A week after that, I couldn't find one spider, or bug or ant, or anything. I have done 2 treatments this year already. I hate killing all these bugs, but I don't have any choice with small kids. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't even bother. When they get older and more aware, I will stop spraying.

 

Tom

 

Edit: This stuff will kill fish so if you have a pond or anything like that, beware.....