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Photo#191057
female adult northern black widow/Latrodectus variolus-view of hourglass - Latrodectus variolus - female

female adult northern black widow/Latrodectus variolus-view of hourglass - Latrodectus variolus - Female
fentress County, Tennessee, USA
June 15, 2008
Size: bdy-15mm w legs-33mm
although not the same individual, this is an adult female Latrodectus variolus. after looking at several websites i make the following observations: juvenile male and female L. v. are similar in appearance, that appearance much resembling the adult male. both adult male and female may have stripes on ventral and dorsal abdomen. however, only the adult female has an hourglass marking on ventral; her body and legs are always glossy black. the male's body is not glossy and the legs are black plus another color. the female adult variolus will usually have an hourglass segmented as seen here; adult female mactan's hourglass is one solid marking. in some cases, an adult female variolus may exhibit a solid hourglass. the markings on the center line of the dorsal and ventral abdomen may range in color from yellow to orange to red.

Images of this individual: tag all
female adult northern black widow/Latrodectus variolus - Latrodectus variolus - female female adult northern black widow/Latrodectus variolus-view of hourglass - Latrodectus variolus - female

Looks like your Caps or CapsL
Looks like your Caps or CapsLk key is broken (or stuck or something). Thanks for cropping your pictures -- it's sometimes the rare image where the spider fills the frame.

-K

 
caps lock and crop
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would that there were more tellurians as observant and gracious as you mr. pfeiffer.

'caps lock' and 'shift' work well: it's simply that my style of writing has evolved to rare, if any, capitalization.

as for cropping. well i do have and use the facilty so that others may view, as close up as possible, my images of the small and fascinating creatures with which we share space.

imageminder

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