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This looks like a black widow but does not have the traditional hourglass markings on its back. There appear to be three orange dots.
Based just on what I found on Bug Guide, that has to be a northern black widow, because the southern one only has one red spot on the back of the abdomen. Northern one can have more, like yours does. It's both yucky and beautiful at once...weird!
This one is probably a juvenile. They often have red and/or white coloration on the dorsum as immatures. It's definitely in the genus Latrodectus.
Your instincts were correct! You don't want to touch this one. Perhaps someone else can differentiate the two species without the underside. Great shot by the way :)
no, I don't have an underside picture because I didn't want to play around with it, just in case it was poisonous.
I may have been hasty on the ID. Both the Northern and Southern Black Widow are in your area. In order to tell them apart, you'd have to have a photo of the underside to show the hourglass. This shot shows the typical spots on the back than both species have. The Southern species has a complete hourglass on the underside where the Northern species has a broken hourglass (middle part is usually missing). Do you have a photo of it's underside?
Spotted on Mar 27, 2012
Submitted on Mar 29, 2012
