Stan's Visit

[keeper2013]

Rick and all the rest of you -

Actually, I turned 71 in August. Holy chocolate! I'm almost 3/4 of a century old! Where'd all that time go?

Sorry, I'm not going east this Winter. I have a mission, a goal, a purpose! I need to collect as many widows (The spider kind! Not loose women!) as I can between Brownsville, Texas and someplace west of Marathon, Texas. The exact endpoint will depend on when my gas money and time finally run out. There is a research scientist at the University of Toronto who is doing some comparative research on widows, but only has three or so kinds to work with. That's not enough for a decent sample for a PhD thesis. Enter Stan the Spider Man!

What started this latest madness was my finding a few of these widows near Sullivan City, Texas. (See attachment.) These were fully grown, adult females! And, as near as I can tell, these have not been identified or described. For all we know, they may be a new species. (Anybody out there know anything substantive about these? If so, feel free to contribute.) We've given them the common name Harlequin widow until their status can be determined. The rest of the tale must wait for after the end of my expedition. (Photos by Carolyn Swagerle, author of Legacy of Annie Rose. Used with permission.)


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There are reportedly four stages to a widow bite (as told by an old
cow-hand in West Texas):

1. Oh my God! I've been bit! I've been bit! Lookit that! I've been bit!

2. Oh my God, it hurts, it hurts! I'm gonna die! I don't wanna die!
Don't let me die! Please don't let me die!

3. Oh my God, it hurts, it hurts! Make it stop! I wish I'd die. I wanna
die! Please let me die! Please let me die!

4. I'm alive! I'm alive! See Kiddies? Grandpa's a tough old bugger. He
got bit by a nasty old spider and lived! The spider died!
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Looks very much like a Brown Widow. The pattern is a little strange tho. The egg sack looks smooth, more like a black. I've had what I thought was a Black, it came in with a bunch of Blacks. It was coal black except the legs had the Brown Widow look. Then it made an egg sack, a Brown Widow egg sack!! Made 3 of them. In the picture the egg sack looks smooth, is it?

 

[Tim Benzedrine]

(The spider kind! Not loose women!)

Good call. You are safer with the spider kind.

 

[miss moxie]

What an impressive collection, and such order to it all. I guess that is what an accountant's mind looks like.

I'm late to the party, but thanks for sharing anyway.

 

[Poec54]

What an impressive collection, and such order to it all. I guess that is what an accountant's mind looks like.

I'm not a typical accountant. I tend to straddle the line between order and chaos.

 

[miss moxie]

I'm not a typical accountant. I tend to straddle the line between order and chaos.

Obviously that's why there's the one messy corner. That's your chaos, and the rest is the order. Even accountants have to let their hair down once in a while, no?

 

[Poec54]

Obviously that's why there's the one messy corner. That's your chaos, and the rest is the order. Even accountants have to let their hair down once in a while, no?

I would, if it wasn't falling out.

You need an area for supplies and spare cups, vials, and cages. That's probably not going to be as tidy.

 

[miss moxie]

I would, if it wasn't falling out.

You need an area for supplies and spare cups, vials, and cages. That's probably not going to be as tidy.

I can only imagine. I have a small collection, so I don't have very much in the way of extra supplies. But I'm trying to picture all the effort, time, and 'extras' that go into a collection that size and I can see why the 'extras' wouldn't get nearly as much attention to detail. Priorities.

Good job on keeping everything as tidy as you do.

 

[Stan Schultz]

Looks very much like a Brown Widow. The pattern is a little strange tho. The egg sack looks smooth, more like a black. I've had what I thought was a Black, it came in with a bunch of Blacks. It was coal black except the legs had the Brown Widow look. Then it made an egg sack, a Brown Widow egg sack!! Made 3 of them. In the picture the egg sack looks smooth, is it?

The eggsacs were smooth and of a parchment color, pear-shaped, more or less typical of both L. mactans or L. hesperis. (See attachment.)

While there is some resemblance, there are also some striking differences. Among them are the difference in dominant background color (Harlequin widow: mahogany brown; Brown widow: gray/tan), difference in the color of the markings (Harlequin widow: vivid creams and yellows, reds; Brown widow: sands, grays, browns) and the characteristics of the eggsac (Harlequin widow: smooth, parchment, pear shaped; Brown widow: spherical, adorned with soft spikes, light sand color).

I am purposely not telling you who the researchers are to allow them to do their work in peace. But, one of them recently sent me an E-mail with the following passage:

"I looked back in some of the older publications and it seems that the harlequins were originally determined to be mactans and then later synonymized with hesperus. I've attached Kaston (1970) where you can see some mention of the Latrodectus mactans texanus (Chamberlin and Ivie, 1935) on page 41."

In addition, an extensive analysis of these spiders' DNA is currently planned (if not under way) that should answer the question of whether this beautiful creature is L. mactans, L. hesperis, a hybrid (since it comes from an area near where those two and possibly L. variolus all come very close together or even overlap, or an entirely new species.

One could make the argument that these are just a highly localized color form, a fluke, or a local mutation. And, these might be completely justified, but they have apparently been known since at least 1905, and I have had a dozen adult females in my possession in the last two years. Whatever they are, they're not a temporary, flash-in-the-pan. And, they're definitely mature females, since several produced viable eggsacs, and I have sent several hundred of the resulting babies to Toronto for research. (See attachment.)

You can read the 1905 paper at Internet Archives: "Comparative Biology of American Black Widow Spiders". I have yet to figure out how to download a copy for my own records, however. Note also that the publication is more than a century old and no longer meets modern standards of taxonomy. This means that while it is still probably largely correct, we won't know for sure until someone upgrades and updates it to modern standards. Anybody want a PhD in Arachnology?

 

[Smokehound714]

I see hesperus like this all the time. It's actually quite natural, sometimes they retain their immature patterns. Those are good specimens to have, especially if their slings grow up the same! Never thought of this..

 

[Oreo]

Beautiful specimen! The coloration reminds me of a juvenile black widow. I have a soft spot for widows since I kept and bred them before I kept any Ts. Smokehound714, do you have any photos? Would be great to see more.