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Redback Spider

(Latrodectus hasselti

Description:

Very similar to the American Black Widow Spider, don't you think?

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9 Comments

Piali Bopanna
Piali Bopanna 12 years ago

Amazing! I pity the male

MartinL
MartinL 12 years ago

Steve, I understand that the adult red back spider (our common name for the black widow) has a perfectly straight stripe. The juvenile has an erratic shaped stripe as this one does. I suspect it is a young one. I also expect that an adult will have a fully spherical abdomen and this one hasn't filled out yet. The American black widow is the same species as ours but have an "hourglass" shape red marking. The link shows an american one eating her much smaller male.
http://www.physorg.com/news63467462.html...

HemantKumar
HemantKumar 12 years ago

beautiful shot, poor male :)

Noe and Pili
Noe and Pili 12 years ago

Beautiful and dangerous!

Ashish Nimkar
Ashish Nimkar 12 years ago

Simply spectacular..!!

Gina9210
Gina9210 12 years ago

Steve, that's about to be a victim, The male has almost the same color as her.

Steve A
Steve A 12 years ago

Gina, do you think that little spider above the redback is the male, or just incidental?

Gina9210
Gina9210 12 years ago

The Australian widow is one of the most deadly widow spider. Widow spiders are named after the female's habit of eating the male after mating . Only female widow spider are dangerous to people, the much smaller male's fangs are too tiny to penetrate human skin.

Gina9210
Gina9210 12 years ago

Thats the australian one!

Steve A
Spotted by
Steve A

New South Wales, Australia

Spotted on Jan 27, 2008
Submitted on Jul 6, 2011

Spotted for Mission

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