False Black Widow Spider

John Wells writes:

"I would like to warn people in Audlem to take care, as we found a nest near to our wall of False Black widow spiders. Fortunately we have destroyed it without any bites. Many thanks John."

Webteam comments

More detail can be found about these spiders in a news article from the Natural History Museum www.nhm.ac.uk in 2013, which indicates that these spiders will bite but are not venomous.

This is to be distinguished from the Black Widow Spider which is highly venomous but lives in the American South and Southwest and Australia. These spiders are characterised in two ways:

• they consume the male after a sexual encounter! (Look out Audlem men in case this becomes a fashion)
• the neurotoxin produced by these spiders is by volume the most venomous in nature and 15 times more virulent than the prairie rattlesnake.

As residents of Audlem we should be thankful only the less harmful variety are resident here.

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