I did get it taken to species on iNaturalist, they agreed with you on Western. Interesting to see you delving into long-jaws too. I have many Tetragnatha, none of them have ever gone to species, can it be done by photographs alone?

I had no idea they could look like this, was very startling. So glad my gut told me what I was looking at. I reviewed the 3 species we get here and only the western seems to have a lot of individuals that showed this color pattern frequently so that is why I went with that when I asked. So waiting on a widow expert to chime in. Thanks for getting it to that section.

There are individuals that I collected in Starr Co. that have very similar markings that I dissected the genitalia out of and they matched southern pretty well. Awesome genus, but boy can they be confusing sometimes!

1. Who is the widow expert for bugguide, is it only widowman?
2. What body part did I need to get the most detailed photo of to make the id? I have not gone thru all my shots yet to process and discard and see what I keep. I simply thought these two shots were the best to show body shape and colorful markings. spider did not make it easy for me and didn't get a good shot of the hourglass although I think I do have a portion of it. I can look for something specific if you let me know. Just looked at widowman's page and he goes into detail on the males of the species but did not of the females. I believe this is a female based on body shape and the fact she had a typical messy web she was using as home base and kept retreating to. I sort of feel she is not completely mature yet also. She was smaller than the only other widow I've photographed which was confirmed as a mature female southern black widow, that one was solid black, with a bright perfectly formed red hourglass.

It looks like a decent sized spider, so if it was a male, it would have matured already since males are tiny. She might not be mature, but with these odd Texas ones, I've found that they can be mature with the crazy patterning like that, even if they are smaller. The only reason I know I had a mature one was because she laid a viable egg sac for me. But yours could certainly still be immature. It's also pretty far north (or TX north anyway), so that has me leaning towards immature southern because I've only seen the weird ones in south TX.

In terms of BG experts, widowman is probably the best, though I'm not sure how often he's on. Otherwise it's sort of a hodge podge of people that know something, but not necessarily everything about the genus. I've worked with them a good amount, but I'm not an expert by any stretch.

I think the hourglass can really help since that seems to be a pretty consistent character across the US species. There'll be some weird ones of course, but for the most part it'll hold. A clean shot of the female epigynum can help as well, but that's a tough shot when she just wants to run into her hide. Plus it would probably blend in to the dark cuticle anyway.

Finished going thru my shots of this individual. Added one less cropped to show more of the web. Added one which shows abdomen from the rear. Added 2 that actually captured some of the hourglass. It was red and does not look separated. But do not have a great shot of the hourglass, she wasn't having it.