Northern Black Widow

Thanks! I didn't know there was a northern black widow. My 5-year-old took this picture this afternoon without me, and I thought it looked had a shape similar to the southern black widows that I'm used to seeing, but I didn't know. I'll definitely have to warn him to be careful.

This is a Black Widow Spider. It is one of these species:

Latrodectus variolus - Northern Black Widow: http://bugguide.net/node/view/26421
Latrodectus mactans - Southern Black Widow :http://bugguide.net/node/view/26336

This is probably an immature spider.