By Rafi Letzter, Staff Writer | August
13, 2018 07:21am ET
Venomous
black widow spiders now range farther north than scientists expected, into an
area including the most-inhabited parts
of Canada. And there's good reason to suggest that warming temperatures are
driving the fatal biters north.
That's one conclusion of a new study, published
online Wednesday (Aug. 8) in the journal PLOS One. The
researchers in this study were trying to identify the geographical ranges of
animals using citizen science and other spotty data sources. They focused on
two spider species: the northern black widow (Latrodectus variolus) and the black purse-web spider (Sphodros niger). The scientists found
that data taken between 1990 and 2016 showed a black widow range extending 58
miles (94 kilometers) farther north than the northernmost observation from the
period between 1960 and 1989. They suggested that black widows might already
range another 30 miles (50 km) north to the Montreal area, though none have yet
been reported in that region. [Creepy,
Crawly & Incredible: Photos of Spiders]
The team could not conclusively demonstrate
that climate change has pushed the spiders north. But a number of their
findings strongly suggest that's the case, the wrote:
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