Black widow spiders seem to be universally feared. But who’s scared of a brown widow? The black widow should be quaking all eight of its boots, a new study suggests. In the United States, there’s a new widow in town. The brown widow. And scientists say it may be taking over some native western black widow territory.
That’d be good news in one sense: Brown widow spider bites are less toxic than those of black widows, researchers say.
The brown widow spider first showed up in the United States (in Florida) in 1935. It was discovered in California in 2003. They’ve done well with their expansion efforts, it seems. Scientists searched various habitats in Southern California where they expected to find black widows, from urban areas to farms to undeveloped natural areas.
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