Did you know that in Florida, there are four types of Widow Spiders? They are the Northern Black Widow spider, the Southern Widow Spider, the red Widow Spider and the Brown Widow Spider which will discuss in more detail below.
Although the venom of these spiders are not as toxic as the Black Widow, they are still very painful and can cause serious injury if not treated.
Because brown widow spiders (latrodectus geometricus) can vary from light tan to dark brown or almost black and may have differing markings such as white, black, yellow, brown and even orange on the back of their abdomen, they are very hard to recognize! The picture below is of the red widow spider.
On the bottom of the abdomen you’ll notice the hourglass marking but it will be colored yellow or orange. The Egg Sac of the brown widow spider is not that same as other widows and has pointed projections much like the old sea mines.
If you have pictures of this spider, or believe you have been bitten by a Brown Widow, please post your comments below and send the pictures to the email address located on the bottom of this page.
I have a brown widow living in the corner of my patio – in the same corner is a huge banana spider. The brown widow ate the male banana spider and had it all wrapped up in her web.
I had never heard of a brown widow until we moved here. They are everywhere. We actually get sprayed every three months for spiders inside and out, but they return within a month every time.
Brown widows often appear white, with small red or brown spots. They can also be incredibly dark, like black widows. It all depends on the spider. I have been spotting and killing black and brown widows for years now, and I think the easiest way to spot them is by their irregular webs.
The webs take the appearance of a witch’s broom style cat’s cradle string game. Just a note, sometimes they are aggressive, it depends on the spider. If you aren’t sure whether or not you are dealing with a brown widow infestation, look to the egg sacks. Brown widows have spiky egg sacks!
We live in San Diego. Last fall I found our first brown widow spider with its unique egg sac. It was the only one I saw. Then a few days ago I noticed a few egg sacs hanging from my kids’ trampoline. I decided to do a careful search of our property and I noticed clusters of up to 12 egg sacs under the eaves of our house. My husband got his canister torch and we went to town blasting away at ever spider and egg sac we could find.
I found a brown widow spider living in EVERY single outside toy. Tricycles, swings, kids’ picnic bench, playhouse, patio chairs, they all had at least one brown widow on them. I probably killed around 50 spiders and at least as many egg sacs. I’m almost panicky thinking of my kids playing around outside. I haven’t had it in the past, but I am going to sign up for a pest control company ASAP.
probably should of mentioned we have tons of crickets in the backyard that come out and night that’s whats probably attracting them.
In all my 12 years of living in this house when we moved here i never seen these Brown widow spiders before until a month ago when i was about to walk out to the backyard where the sliding glass door leads out to it.
as i was walking down the steps i stopped immediately and as u would see yellow tape that would say caution this was all webbing a lost like it was from the handlebars to the other side of the wall as if the webs were blocking me from continuing. as i saw 2 of them on the web i never seen spiders like this so i got my hand lighter and lit them up as i continued to walk passed the steps i saw more to the side and under the chairs and tables to my left against the wall of the house i actually saw a HUGE black widow sharing the web with 2 of the brown widows that were smaller and at first i thought maybe that’s what small black widows look like then i saw more smaller ones tons where the chairs and tables were outside so with m hand lighter i just lit all them as many as i saw during this month
i been seeing them pop up in the same spot also along the railing outside of the house leading to the backyard. I go outside at night to get rid of them. Im thinking of just taking all our stuff and breaking it down and throwing it away its all just “Stuff” anyway. I basicly alrdy knew the less clutter the less effect u will see spiders. I still havnt seen an egg since. What i find weird is when i kill the spiders at night when i go out in the morning the bodies are gone. hopefully i can get rid of them i hate spiders hah.
We have a ton of these spiders living around our patio and backyard fence. They’ve infested a picnic table, patio chairs, even some of the plants. I use something called Terro Spider Killer and it works great. If you want to kill a bunch of them at once, I recommend going outside around 8-9 PM since that’s when they come out and are most visible.
I live in Laguna Niguel CA. Tonight i killed about 15-20 brown widows in my back yard as well as a ton of egg sacks. Lots of the widows had the sacks on them. These things are everywhere. I just used Raid and it worked fine. Go out at night with a flashlight.
I was playing tennis and I found a brown widow and so i filled up all my water bottles with water and dumb it on the spider and her eggs over and over again until she got mad. Then I left them soaked and angry. Hopefully i will kill them tomorrow 😀
I found a brown widow egg sac in our kitchen behind the garbage can. As soon as I saw the strange sac with spokes sticking out all around it I began to look for the spider. I saw a web under the kitchen table bench spread out to the floor a foot away and two legs hanging below the bench. I went on-line and researched the egg sac to see it matched the picture of the brown widow egg sac. We used Ortho indoor outdoor insect spray to kill the spider because she was hiding in a crevice on the bench as soon as my husband flipped it over to find her.
We need to look under the table top and see if there are anything other egg sacks. Ugh!
Our dog’s paw became swollen and I took her to the vet. That afternoon I checked the shade cover of her x-pen and found the white sac with the little points on it. When the swelling of hour dog’s paw increased I took her to the vet again and also took one of the spiders and the egg sac. Our dog is now on antibiotics as pus has started to come from the infected site. In reading information on the spider, I find there is no anti-venom for it.
Earlier this year, I did find these strange egg cases but did not think much about them until now.
As we were away on vacation and our dogs were boarded at a kennel, I wasn’t aware that I should have checked the shade cover of our pen.
Thanks for all the information on this site. I hope our dog will be okay.
I live in Del Mar, Ca. My Wife and I have noticed a huge infestation of Black, Brown, and now White Widows on our community. We killed over a hundred in just a half block. The White widow are the strangest.
From reading some info these are supposed to be young black widows but this is not the case. These are large adults that have all white on the back orb. Maybe from Brown and Black widows cross breeding? I can only say this is out of control from the normal. We’re talking 1-5 widows every 3 square feet. Nightmare!!
I live in Fullerton CA and we are overwhelmed with brown widows. They used to be attracted to my wrought iron things, but lately I’m finding them on anything wood also. I hung clothes outside to dry and within hours found their webs attached to the clothes. They like dirt too. They are in my bushes and attach their webs to the dirt it looks like. I stab them and smash up the eggs sacks. We used to have a bug man spray every month, but my son has an immune issue so we canceled the bug man. Since we don’t spray anymore they are literally everywhere.
I live in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
I just found one eating a rollypolly at my work.
I was scrubbing the floors when i saw it move out of the corner of my eye and my hand brushed up against it. I’m glad i wasn’t bitten!
How do i get rid of it?
I am in El Cajon, CA. Reading these posts, it seems that we are having a bumper year here for brown widows. I had no trace of the buggers last year in my yard, but this summer I have an infestation on my porch and backyard area. Found the first one when I went to put on my bathing suit that had been drying on one of my patio chairs. I went to put my leg in, and it popped out of the suit crotch area and took off running across the floor. I killed it and studied it as I had never seen a spider move so fast and “leggy”. Sure enough it had the orange hourglass. I studied my porch and upon closer inspection, found lots of cottony sticky messy webs underneath my patio chairs and under my kids water table. Ended up killing about 20 of various sizes.
My landlord sent out pest control, who sprayed, and said they found about 50 of them whilst spraying, but my troubles did not end there. I have been killing 5-10 of these a day for the past month. They seem to just keep coming back, and have a special fondness for my kids’ bikes, my patio furniture, kids’ outdoor toys and the outside of my patio box. Very frustrating. I have gone through 3 cans of Raid and 1 can of oven cleaner so far! I usually leave spiders alone but am worried that my kids will get bit. I moved to this duplex so that my kids could have a backyard to play in, but this summer I am not letting them out there, it’s just not worth them getting bit. I am concerned that these spiders will move into the house too. It’s very strange how I didn’t have this problem last year, yet this year I am infested.
Irvine, CA
I have a three year old, and 11 month old, and the idea of spraying poison makes me nervous as it could have persistent nasty effects on unintended targets. To make matters worse the poisons seem to have limited effect on the spiders.
My small back yard has become infested, and in ~ 20 min I killed perhaps 12-18 spiders and a couple of eggsacks. About six of the spiders were quite large.
I have found that using one of those lighters for lighting stoves, and “RZ-50 dry film lubricant spray” works very well. The stuff is frighteningly flammable, so you need to be careful to not singe your eyebrows or start a fire. The 2-3 ft fireball takes out the spiderwebs, gets the spiders hiding in the cracks, deck furniture etx, and doesn’t leave any visible residue.
I live in Mission, Texas (deep south, about 10 minutes from the border). I don’t ever remember seeing these spiders, and a few days ago I found that they had infested everything on my patio. My 3 year old son has lots of dump trucks and outside toys. They had made nests/egg sacks inside almost every one of his toys. I’ve been cleaning them out and spraying and killing them and smashing their egg sacks, plus spraying wherever they had made nests. I’ve been using Bengal Roach Spray, and Hot Shot spider spray. I’ve also sprayed Ortho Home Defense Max and put granules that say they help to kill/prevent spiders. From what I’ve been reading it seems like these things are spreading like wildfire. I don’t mind garden spiders, but now I’m trying to eradicate every pest in my yard to get rid of them.
Where did these things come from? Think maybe Katrina blew them over? I have found TWO in the last month. I was told there is no anti-venom for the brown widow.Is that so? The first one I saw, had an abdomen as big as a dime!
I have seen two of these recently. one had a back end the size of a dime ,& the hourglass was glowing neon orange. The other one, my son found under my carport late at night when he tried to capture it in a jar, it ran under a piece of furniture I was re-finishing. I stayed up all night long. Refusing to sleep till I killed it! About noon the next day I caught that sucker, placed him in a jar with a alcohol cotton ball.He was just a small one. But you could see that orange spot on her underside. Where did these things come from? Do you think maybe Hurricane Katrina blew all these strange things over here?
I just found and killed 5 brown widow spiders on my side deck and on my sliding door. I wish I took a pic of them but I know there are more when I find them I will email the pictures to you. I knew what they were because last month they did a news report here in socal but they were in orange county but now they are here in rialto, ca.
I have found about 6 eggs sacs on my outdoor trash can. Also, black and brown widow spiders in the area. Will bug spray kill the spiders in the egg sac, if not how do you get rid of them? I am in Lakeside, CA.
Oh, I forgot…I live in the Sunland/Tujunga area of Southern California. Also, the brown widow doesn’t seem to shy away from sunlight unlike the creepy shadow dwellings of the black widow.
I’m a textbook case for ” not being aware of garden ‘dangers’. Recently I was watering my backyard with a garden hose and the little bugger (brown widow) climbed up the garden hose (frm its coil in the bushes) and up my wrist to the underside of my forearm and bit me!
Since there were some mosquitoes and ‘no see-ums’ around I didn’t think much of it. I did feel a sharp prick there but attributed it to a deer fly bite. Along with a few mosquito bites I noticed this one blister/bite on the forearm underside. I made the mistake of squeezing it some thinking that with anticeptic and neo-sporin it would go away.
I waited a week (big mistake) before noticing the redness spreading and the swelling increasing. When my arm swelled up, and the bite-site starting to shoot ribbons of infection up my arm I went to Urgent Care where I received a 7 day supply of heavy duty antibiotics.
The bite-site became raw and basically became an open wound requiring bandages. My arm hurt like heck until (while changing bandages) it drained itself (about a 3/4 shot glass full of pus). Then the pain went away but for 3 more weeks I had an awful wound where I had to change the dressing every 12hrs or so.
Now, 1 month later, I still have a bruise at the site but the worst is well over. The most alarming thing about the whole affair is that the brown widow spider was very colorful and on quick glance resembles your average garden insect (ie color and all). The thing to remember is it’s SHAPE. It looks very much like a black widow in shape(!) Forget the color! It’s the shape (yeesh) that’s the give-a-way. Live and learn I guess.
Found a brown widow spider in the bathroom of my duplex last week. Didn’t see where to post the close-up photo so I’ll email it. This lucky spider was carefully placed in a pill bottle with a piece of paper towel and shipped to the UC Riverside Entomology Department. They are researching Brown Widows, although not specifically for LA County, and more info can be found online.
Just noticed two more in the front yard that made intricate webs. Hopefully they’ll stay out of the way because I really hate to get rid of them…
In the past 2 months I have found a total of 6 brown widow spiders on my front patio. I live in the panhandle of Florida and have never come across these spiders until recently. One was crawling around on the chair I sit in every morning, and I’m pretty sure the bites I discovered on my back this morning are from a spider. I decided to take a look around and discovered an egg sac underneath the BBQ grill.
Hey Dawn,
Send me your picture at badspiderbites [at] gmail.com and I’ll get it posted for you!
Jen
@ Shannon Leviner – Get an exterminator!! We have an old drafty house made in the early 1900’s too & whenever I think we are OK without an exterminator, nope everything from spiders, roaches, to wasp come back. I know how you feel, I have two children myself & it frustrates me whenever I let time go by without having the exterminator come in. They aren’t really that expensive like some people think. Mine comes by the house quarterly (about every 3 months) for $75.00 & they take care of every pest I have. And trust me, it will be the best thing you ever invested in.
This year, we are absolutely OVERRUN with these poisonous spiders! I went out last night with a flashlight, as they really love to come out after dark. It took my breath away, there were so many, all in and around my many flowers and bushes, and I am not normally squeamish about spiders. I also found multiple egg sacks under the wood beams of my fence and under the eaves of my house. If you are a gardener, BEWARE. The brown widow loves vegetation of all kinds, including flower and vegetable gardens.
We spray around our foundation regularly with professional products, which unfortunately do not appear to have any effect on the brown widow. I called an on-line store (for those who like do it yourself pest control) and was advised that spiders are hard to get rid of and need direct spray, usually with a wettable powder or dust. I have an organic garden, so I am going to try the least toxic of his recommendations first, which is ECO WP, a wettable powder. I am going to spray the creatures at night as that’s when they seem to be most active. Will let you know if it does any good. I hope so, because at this point I’m afraid to even pull weeds!
Forgot to add that I am in El Cajon, California
We have them here too, in Yorba Linda, CA. It is a constant battle with them. I found six small ones under my kids water play table! I actually found 5, the 6th crawled up my leg and bit me while I wasn’t looking. That was yesterday and I feel fine, just a little redness where she got me. I can deal with Black Widows because they are fiercely territorial, so you usually find only one in a patio chair. the Brown Widows don’t seem to mind company and have parties in our teak furniture. 9 in one chair alone, yeesh!! Diligent cleaning keeps our 1 year old explorer as safe as he can be and the our 5 year old daughter knows to stay away from webs.
Just found one of these next to my house in Carbondale, Illinois. I live a long way from where these things are supposed to be.
I am from Ontario California, and I have seen an increase in widow spiders lately. Not a good thing, since I have 2 dogs, and a 3 year old who loves to run around the yard. The other day I found a dead widow by my front door, and thought it was a black widow, it was so dark, but then when I looked closely, I noticed light brown stripes along it’s legs. I just ignored it, and thought that it was just a different shade of the black widow… until today. This afternoon I was out back with my daughter, watering my rose bushes which are up against our dividing fence, when all of a sudden a huge widow drops down from the top beam.
I was so startled, and went inside to get bug spray, and when I came out to get it, I noticed it was lighter in color (a decent brown) with light tan stripes on it’s legs. There was no doubt that it was a widow, since it had the huge rear end, and the red hour glass, but man, the colors of it looked like so many of the other spiders running around here that I’ve always thought were harmless. Now I beginning to think that the smaller spiders that have the same look, may indeed be little brown widows. That’s a scary thought! If this indeed is true, than I have a serious problem on my hands. I’m a little freaked out right now. Before tonight (when I finally googled it) I didn’t even know Brown Widows existed, being from So Cal we usually only see Black Widows, now I’m realizing that there is a whole other monster out there waiting to attack my kid. Frightening, that. 🙁 No Bueno!
Yesterday, I found a Brown Widow and her egg sacs in my waste container in Long Beach, CA. I was quite taken aback by the female’s magnificent beauty, however, I didn’t hesitate to removed the egg sacs. As I did so, she played dead (as a later found out) and it was quite a show she put on.
I have the egg sacs secured in a 35mm film container. At this point, I’ll either dispose of them, or donate them to the invasive species research center at UC Riverside.
Killed this one last night on our back porch. I’m attempting to link the photo since I see no email at the bottom to send the pic to.
I appreciate reading the many comments and observations regarding this spider from around the country. I’m located in San Diego and have lived in this home for 27 years. To the folks who think we’re spider haters for killing the Brown Widow species I’d like to mention a few things. I’ve co-existed wonderfully with black widows on my 1/4 acre plot and always had a policy of relocating the ones that moved in to the living spaces. This was my uniform treatment of all spiders, my whole life, as learned from my mother who felt they brought good luck.
The last three years here have seen an invasion of the African brown widows that has actually seemed to displace the native black widows. Those are rare on my property anymore. I can say I wish I’d eliminated all those spiky, cream-colored egg sacks that started appearing under my many garbage can (for greens recycling) handles a few years back!! The population has exploded. For the last year I have killed every brown widow I encountered and today I realized I need to step up the battle or lose it.
These noxious spiders are now encroaching into my garage and storage buildings as well as my HOME, through some old wooden framed windows. The BEST thing I can say is that these spiders thankfully announce themselves in a unique way in that their “disorganized” webs are sticky and unmistakable when you put your hand (or head!) into it. It is hard to remove and distinctive. You can catch the buggers hunting along the web if you’re lucky. Maybe you see them in a crack or crevice.
I haven’t tried poisons yet and seeking advice on that is how I got to this website. Anyway, I am doing some things in advance of chemicals which includes a good clean-out of the garage, storage and yard areas. One huge bit of advice I can offer is using a Shop-Vac (mine is a 16 gallon) to catch these guys when seen. For some reason they generally allow themselves to be sucked up (this technique goes for houseflies and Argentine ants as well.) If they are in crack, I use a long slender screwdriver to coax them out or smash them, in conjunction with a crevice tool on the vacuum hose. They have never walked out of the canister again!
With the ants (horrible problems here and probably in many areas), when they are vacuumed up I spray only the entry spot with Home Defense and this is very effective. I’ve got a lot of suggestions for chemical treatments from the posts I read and now look forward to waging a winning war on these brown widow non-native invaders. It is sad I agree, but when I walk through an area at my home and feel the sticky web on my hands and body I know they have too much reign here!!!
i have fine a brown looking spiders it looks like a Brown widow spiders what do i do with it?
I just found one brown widow and five or six black widows and a nest of eggs(6 total) in a gas station trash container not the trash can but the cover part at a gas pump and I’m in south Louisiana in thibodaux.
I am officially freaked out! These spiders are all over the house. And I really mean everywhere! Fridge, shower, under the kitchen table and chairs, cabinets, I think you get my point. I had no idea they were poisonous. Also, we have blue wasps that have tried to take up residence as well. The favorite food of the blue wasp is a black widow. Ugh! Our house was built in 1912 and is very drafty. We also have a German roach infestation which caused the whole cycle to begin. Can anyone help me determine how to rid our house of these pests? I have two young children and a dad who can’t get around and is allergic to wasps.
fresh pics of my little monster…. & i am not so sure everyone here is totally freaked out and hates spiders.. i do hate them but only when they are in my home or in a place near my home where a dangerous spider could meet one of my dogs or a small child, my nephew is always into everything… and these guys are not exactly hiding under the porch or up in a corner of the garage…they are building nests under the patio table so they could drop on your leg when you sit and under the chairs you sit on…. to me that is not cool…
Hi Folks, I am in Port St. Lucie, Fl. I don’t know where to begin to describe to you the insane amount of Brownies in my garage. They are everywhere. So far I have never been bothered by them, maybe it’s because I loved the child’s book “Charlotte’s Web”. I do admit I get rid of them when I can’t get into my car without one hiding under the handle. I do this by using a small shop vac to suck the little Brownies up. I them drop them out of the bucket in a field by my house and let them enjoy the chance to heal and thrive. Don’t be fooled by hysteria. They perform a vital job as dos any spider in our eco system. So if you need some relief suck them up andrelease them elsewhere. They deserve it as they work hard at cleaning up other pests for us.
so cali checkin in!
found one today under a plastic patio chair… noticed dog hair caught in the unmistakable krazy tangle of patternless webbing a BW spider always spews, i checked the dark recess of the molded chair & saw the little guy hiding so i knocked him out into the light of day & Holy crap! i have never seen one before never even heard of any thing but a black widow but here was a light tan, striped like a tabby cat ‘widow’ spider with an orange hourglass under his belly..?… i find black widows all the time around my house and garage … here in so cali they are in every dark corner of a carriage or under a pile of bricks or lawn tools you name it..
I took some pics and will upload later i think they are pretty good we will see…didn’t have the right lens handy ……… freaky looking thing i tell ya!.
watch out under rarely used patio furniture, bbqs etc…they love that stuff.
Found a mom with some babies (sadly most had dispersed) under a plastic lawn chair today. Killed them with Hot Shot spider killer. I live in Los Angeles in the Valley. We also have an alarming number of black widows around the property as well. Not happy especially since I have an extremely curious 2 year old!
Wow, I just found one of these brown widows that I though was white widow!
I live in San Clemente, CA which is a beach town in southern Cali. I caught and fed this spider to my B52 Venus flytrap, haha!
Apopka, FL.
Just found a brown widow hiding out under a beam of my lanai enclosure. Noticed a widow web and to my surprise found a very large adult brown widow.
I have 2 small dogs, so this became a serious concern. I flung it in my pool skimmer. When it’s good and dead I’ll take a post-mortem photo to post.
I have killed over 100 brown widows at work in the past two days. I live in Southern Alabama and it seems like these spiders are starting to take over my shop. I have sprayed “Home Defense” all over the place twice in the past 6 months and they just keep coming back! Any ideas on what I can to to get rid of these nasty spiders?
I live in corona California, and last night I killed four of these things. In the past 3 years I have seen a significant increase. Sad part is they resemble a garden spider except in body shape, and the hourglass. There seems to be more of these brown then there are black ones. Seriously considering hiring pest control, since I have never seen so many spiders at any given time.
Nickie,
If you send me your pictures at badspiderbites [at] gmail.com I will post your pictures under your comment for you.
Jen
I’ve been catching and raising widows for many years,they are very interesting. I would like to know how to post some pictures of them.
My daughter bought a jeep wrangler from Gonzales, Louisiana. This is close to New Orleans. The jeep was infested with the brown widows. My suggestion is spray with suspend just like a normal professional would spray your house and outside of your house. First time you spray then spray 3 months later then every 6 months. This is the BEST. I could not believe how well it works on all insects. You can get it off line or may look up places that sell it. It comes concentrated so will last a couple of years. I love this spray. It kills everything.
I used to work at a mental/forensic hospital. Certain residents who needed close supervision were required to sit in large plastic seats located outside on the cement patio. We had a number of residents on our building who had spider bites, which became severely infected with MRSA and led to being hospitalized. None of the staff had heard of Brown Widows until one of our curious nurses discovered egg cases under her swing outside her home and Googled them. She informed me as the manager of the building where the majority of bites had occurred and we searched beneath the chairs and discovered brown widows. She was being ridiculed for not knowing the difference between black widows and our common brown recluse. Not until I copied pictures of the spiders and their unique egg cases, along with info about their venom did other people take her seriously.
We were told by our maintenance staff that spiders were not killed by residual spray and must be sprayed directly and that the spray did not kill the hundreds of babies in the egg sacks. I found three huge sacks on my porch tonight and am calling my pest control company first thing in the morning. I have a 7-mo. old granddaughter who loves to explore the porch in her walker and the sacks were right where she could reach them. I also have two very curious small dogs, who love to nudge or chew anything that moves. Scary!
I live in Northwest GA. My husband and I were cleaning or backyard and moved a pool…. it was covered in Brown and black widow spiders! I have 3 kids. what do i do? we got some spray and will be spraying tomorrow. Lord, I hope it works.
Judging by the comments I take it this is a website for people who hate spiders.
That’s a shame because without spiders to keep the eco systems around them in check, we would be overrun by flies, beetles, moths and worst of all, mosquitoes and roaches.
I have several brown widows living peacefully outside my apartment and I enjoy watching them setting traps for their prey. I would not like to be bitten by one but I know it is highly unlikely. You could poke one with your finger and it will undoubtedly retreat.
Grabbing one from it’s web is definitely not a good idea though and I can see the danger they potentially pose to curious children. That being said, we need to realize we live in a world we are outnumbered by bugs and we should be more aware of what is dangerous and what is not and we should educate our kids early, not just the dangers but the benefits these creatures have on the environment too.
One should feel safe in the knowledge that 94-96% of the creepy crawlies on this planet are entirely harmless to humans and those that are a real danger are mostly defending themselves. So we should respect their personal space where possible and to avoid danger in our homes, take better care when dusting out closets and be sure to check inside old work gloves and boots.
I live in central Florida. This spider was on my pool net handle. It also had a very strong web that felt like hair. I know this because I used the net before i noticed the spider. It was after i felt the web on me that i noticed the spider at the other end. Luckily it didn’t get on me. I’m not sure, but it looks like a brown widow. It was a little smaller than a dime and brownish with a big abdomen .
Okay, I am a house painter, and I see these spiders, and many others all the time. They are not monsters. They will not hunt you down. They are more common than people think, however. If you don’t want to kill them you can coax them onto a stick very easily, and carry them to a bush away from common areas. Be advised that they reproduce quite rapidly, and if you have one, soon you will have many more. The easiest way to get rid of them is to use a vacuum, and keep areas free of clutter. They do not make the classic spider web. Instead, it’s a tangled mess of threads, and they will make one just about anywhere they can. Easily identified when the sacs are present. The males are much smaller, but if there are eggs present, then you know they’re around, and the population will boom. Once the sacs open, there’s usually a few hundred babies waiting to fly away on a gossamer thread, and start the whole thing all over again. I wouldn’t say they are harmless, but they are very common, and an unknown infestation is not unusual. Nothing to freak out about, as we have been sharing the same living space with them for thousands of years. If you have infants or are taking care of the elderly, just do a search around the house for their telltale web and sacs. If you notice them, get the vacuum out, and suck them up. It really is that simple. I find them all the time while painting, and that’s how I get rid of them.
I have to laugh when I read where people say these Brown widow spiders are NOT aggressive as that is not the case here in Kissimmee Fl. I was out on my screened in porch when I spotted a web with a lg spider and spike sack and looked it up on the computer. I then went out to kill it and that spider came at me as if she had to kill me before I sprayed her. It was a LARGE brown widow spider with 2 egg sacks and I killed them both. I now see them all over by my house, Garbage cans, mail boxes, back porch, etc and they are VERY aggressive. I have 5 pic of them and they are the big as are the sacks. PLEASE tell me what to use to get rid of them before my grand-kids get bit. They are taking over.
insecticides do not work on any spider unless you get direct contact with the spider,fumigating for them is a waste of time and money………..what works really good and is really cheap is to put soapy(like dishsoap) water in a spray bottle and and spray them directly(tried and proved this myself)this knowledge was given to me by a pest control guy, hope this proves useful to everyone!!!!
Here in the UK we have conkers/chestnuts that grow on trees. Inside of them is a small brown nut, the chestnut, apparently spiders hate them, I have very few spiders in my house because of them put them at the window sills. I’m not sure where you would get conkers over in the States though.
I am a Pest Control Operator/Technician out of Central Florida and I have, lately, been encountering the Brown Widow often. Typical crack and crevice treating, along with eave and corner treatment keep these spiders away. I use Cyper wettable powder for these treatments. I see typical infestations of brown widow spiders – and other various Florida spiders – completely wiped out within a couple days to a few weeks.
The only thing that bothers me as a PCO is that I have to kill these spiders. I dislike killing spiders due to the fact that I have a pet Tarantula, and that spiders are nature’s pest control.
Seminole, FL – I have been finding a ton of the white/spiky egg sacks all around the outside of my house, under window ledges, corners, all under patio furniture. I called pest control and they came out to treat the entire front/back yard and remove eggs/spiders they found. They guy was shocked at how many egg sacks and adult spiders he found..including all under, around the lip of a big plastic pot I use to put the kids pool toys in!
Many were also around the pool pump as they are attracted to the heat. They are difficult to treat as they don’t walk through poison like other bugs…so it’s more kill on contact. I have a lot of trees, so the rain is pushing them to the ground and allowing them to then breed. I have a dog, 3 cats, and 2 kids…I am definitely concerned. Walking through the neighborhood I now see a bunch of mailboxes with the webs/egg sacks all underneath. Major problem here in FL.
One was found in KS and I’m very scared!
According to the local news, a brown widow was found in a small town just Southwest of me (in haysville, Ks.) So they are now in Kansas also.
I have killed a couple of black widows in my house the past 2 years, and my wife was bitten by a brown recluse. I killed what I thought was another black widow in my bathroom last night (though it didn’t look quite right). After seeing the news story, I started researching brown widows, and I now believe that is what I killed in the bathroom last night.
Oh my God. I was cleaning the screened in porch I found like 30 brown widows and 3 black widows. I’m sending my husband to get bug spray to get rid of each one of them. Next I’m calling pest control. I have 4 kids cant afford anything to happen. One of them is a 3 yr old, he likes playing outside. I have to figure out how to upload pics. To be continued……..
i live in fl and one day i went to my grandmas house and i got her recycle bins up for her and i felt a web and i looked and saw a brown widow spider with 3 big spiky egg sacs. luckily i was not bitten. i used this bug poison for wasps called “The End” and it kills the spiders instantaneously. thought this might help. -Cj
Hi! I’m a grad student at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga. and I’m doing my Master’s thesis on Brown Widows. I’m in need of specimens, so if any of you are in the state and happen to find some, I’d greatly appreciate if you would email me! These spiders aren’t very aggressive and would rather run than waste venom, so if you’d let them be and notify me, I’d be happy to come get them. 🙂
Email: ba00014 [at] georgiasouthern.edu
Thanks!
OMG I saw one and I live in WA, but I al glad to know that I killed that one… MAN I hate spiders… UGH!
Hi! I live in Mission Valley in San Diego, CA. I found one of these brown widows on my porch. I would normally smash him, but the only time I see him is when he is on his web. It would be impossible for me to smash him because he is floating in air. IF I went out there during the day and smashed (or even better…burned) his web, would he move on and go away or would he build his web again? Also, how can I find her sack? How else can I get rid of him. Can anyone recommend a spray I can buy?
I live in FL. i saw them in my mail box a month or so ago, and sprayed them, but that didn’t work. a couple weeks ago, i was cleaning my back patio and and lifted the cover to my fire pit and there was a few spiders and a bunch or sacs. I sprayed underneath with a hose to get it all clean, and have since left it uncovered. it seems to be helping. however, i found a spider on my mop bucket today, so i think now i am going to find an insecticide.
We are being invaded by brown widows down here at fort Polk la. Nothing works to get rid of them and I have 4 small kids…. Help if you can!
I found this nasty guy hiding under the lip of my garbage can. Will find out later I guess if I was bitten. I had been working the whole day with the can cleaning out the garage and had felt a bite earlier in the day. Not sure if it was her but I was on the look out when I noticed the egg sacks and went in to investigate. I tugged on the web and she shot out showing her red hour glass on her abdomen. I sprayed her with Raid. Beautiful insect.
Jeff, Tampa, FL
just found one in the kitchen while cooking my cheeseburgers for dinner, i have a 3 year old little boy and its the second spider i have found., no pics tho i have no camera, and i also killed a brown recluse 2 days ago, this one in the kitchen was a brown widow, i am in Tulsa OK
Spring Hill, Fl has become over-run with widows. Our entire property and anywhere I go, whether it be friends houses, the local botanical garden, whatever it may be, I see brown widows all over the place.
I see the black widows mostly in the garage where its much darker. I was bit in several places last night in my husband’s car. One of them bit my toe in one place and I have at least three entry point bites on my ankle and my ankle is now nearly the size of a tennis ball.
I don’t have any pics yet I’m waiting for my camera battery to charge. What has been helpful in reducing the number of spiders has been using apple cider vinegar in a spray bottle. We have a lot of animals and we don’t like the idea of using pesticides both in and outside the house unless it becomes absolutely necessary.
I’ve sprayed around every entry/threshold to the house, I’ve been spraying the cars before dark and if I see any sacs or webs around the outside in the gardens I’ve been spraying them too. The spiders scatter and begin to die within thirty seconds or so and its pretty obvious they can’t stand the stuff as they scatter every which way trying to get away from it.
I’ve even had some non threatening garden spiders run out of the lawn and run away down my sidewalk just after spraying the vinegar a few feet from the lawn. They apparently can’t stand the smell of the stuff anymore than most humans.
I’ve also learned that acetone is detestable to most bugs and the fumes can suffocate them. I’ve been told that dousing cotton balls in acetone and strategically placing them in common areas will help cut back on numbers too. I’ll be trying this later today.
According to Dr. G.B. Edwards, an arachnologist with the Florida State Collection of Arthropods in Gainesville, the brown widow venom is twice as potent as black widow venom. However, they do not inject as much venom as a black widow, are very timid, and do not defend their web. The brown widow is also slightly smaller than the black widow.
I have found the brown widow to be very shy, and she has not defended her nest when provoked. For that matter, she packed up and moved elsewhere. Her speed in doing so was very surprising. I wore heavy duty gloves for protection in cleaning the area, but am not sure I could have avoided her had she chosen to attack as I cleaned out the nest.
I hadn’t seen these in my 18 years until about a month ago i tried to move something and there was a big brown widow in it’s web (i accidentally touched the web and got within probably a half inch of it). Anyway,lately i have found quite a few more…they are starting to seem more and more common as i research them. I was wondering though if anyone out there would be interested in buying some of the ones i have?
I live in El Cajon, CA also.
Ok well, yesterday in the bathroom there was a spider. I had no clue what type it was. I examined the eyes and there were eight. It was a tannish brown color, and had dark brown (faint) stripes on it’s legs. I looked in the Pine Barrens Of New Jersey, (I live there) And there was no spider that fit my description. I decided to Google it. I found a picture of the spider (the brown widow) and it looked EXACTLY like the one I found in the bathroom. The one in the bathroom is a brown widow. Last night I captured him. I took closer looks at him and compared him with the picture. It was indeed a brown widow. I would like to know more about their defense system, and more, because they are not in the pine barrens of new jersey at all. Please Help me learn more.
I live in San Diego and I’ve been noticing more and more brown widows around. These guys don’t hide either. They are spreading like wild-fire and there isn’t an efficient way to control them. They are not aggressive, actually quite timid. You can actually handle them. Though the chance of getting bitten is greater when they are everywhere
.
There is a professor at UC Riverside who would like you to send the egg sacs to him if you find a brown widow and her spikey egg sac. He is trying to develop ways to control these spiders. If you do find them send the sac in a pill jar or film canister to:
Rick Vetter
Dept. Of Entomology
University of California Riverside
3401 Watkins Dr
Riverside, CA 92521
Hope this helps
Doug C
Found this brown widow in the handle of my sliding glass door. We live in Dunedin Florida, off the Gulf Coast.
I took a picture but can’t get it to paste on this reply. The one I found has orange on its beautifully colored abdomen and I found it near its eggs which are creme and have spikes of sorts on them. Its web is thick and sort of cottony.
Hope this helps,
Molly
i found one in my bed while i was clipping my nails and i felt something on my back so i swatted it off it started crawling under my bed so I tracked it down and killed it.
The species is generally non-aggressive and unlike the black widow will not defend the nest. Brown widow bites are very uncommon in humans and generally occur from direct contact with the spider and your skin. They are actually rather beneficial as they are extremely efficient killers of mosquitoes. However, if you wish to avoid them your best bet is to eliminate clutter from your garage or yard such as open boxes, sheds, tools, wood, and other construction waste. Furthermore, diligent cleaning of lawn furniture and other things which offer cover for them to nest with a hose is effective. (WEAR GLOVES) Finally, they are generally unaffected by general insecticides so “bombing” your garage will prove ineffective. prevention is your best bet but otherwise a professional exterminator should be contracted in extreme cases.
These spiders like some place to hide. I found a Black Widow that had made it’s web on my fence behind a garden hose. When I moved the hose, she was not to be seen. When I put it back, she was right there, hiding in her web.
Well, they are in Baltimore, MD now too. We found a Black Widow in the house about 6 months ago and didn’t see any more, but today I found several Brown Widows in the garage and a cluster of 6 egg sacks. Soaked them all with the super-sticky wasp spray and will be heading to the store for spider killer tomorrow. Kids and a dog mean I’m not messing around with these things getting any further inside the house. Not good… Thanks for the great website!
I found one in my front yard I live in Grand Terrace, CA. I still got it in a jar it’s a small female. I don’t know what to do with her.
they make great pets!! bees and lady bugs are their favorite.
It’s no surprise to me that these spiders are being reported in so many parts of the U.S. as well as the one from Thailand. As goods are shipped over greater and greater distances, species that are normally not found in one place or another are being accidentally dropped off. It’s no longer safe to assume that just because a spider has been associated with a particular native range, it will stay there.
We just moved last month to our new apartment here in Carson, CA . Just yesterday while doing fogging we saw one big Brown Widow Spider crawling in our kitchen door frame which was easily identified by the pest control staff. “He said it is brown widow spider.” We are not really familiar with this specie of spider, so I took pictures of the spider and google it in the internet and we learned that it is really venomous and can cause harm to human. We are worried because we have 3 kids and our 3rd kid is just 18 months old. We requested fogging in the apartment because my little one has so many bites on his body everyday and it has bad reaction to his skin. We are really worried, how can we get rid of this spiders?
Found this at work in the outside picnic area on a bench.. Looked it up, saw this website, so here it is!
Found one of these guys in Sacramento, Ca. Like the black widow, they are very smart. This little man built his web next to a hole in the house. Every time I try to turn him over for a picture, he runs into the crack. He is brown with a bright reddish orange hourglass on its abdomen.
There in Texas now ya’ll. Found a black one a few weeks ago and now a brown one. Creepy!!!!!!!
Is there any other kind of spider with a round shiny body besides the widow spiders? If not, we have a brown widow in our Bearded Dragon’s habitat. It was sitting on top of a dead cricket loosely wrapped in a very sticky web. I tried to take a picture this morning, but it scurried away at the slightest hint of noise. It is currently lurking in the corner of the cage. I guess I need to somehow go home and a) remove the dragon without getting bitten by the spider, then b) kill the spider without making the habitat toxic, then c) once I am very certainly sure it is dead, turn it over and see what its belly looks like. Ugh.
We live in Ocoee, FL and my son and I have found them on our screened-in back porch, underneath a wooden table on the front porch and in the little grooves of our rocking chairs on the front porch. Just today we killed 6 big brown widows as well as the egg sacs. Within the last week, I found four big ol’ brown widows and a black widow under the edges of some square planters I have tomato plants in. I was going to move one of the planters by grabbing the edge and the little voice said, “check for spiders first.” Sure glad I listened to the little voice that time. My 21-month old granddaughter has a playhouse off of our back porch and we are constantly having to make sure her house is free and clear of spiders as well. Be sure not to leave shoes sitting on your front porch as these are wonderful places for them to hide.
A week ago when pulling the cover of my grill i came in contact with a brown spider with a tan colored abdomen….didn’t find a match to my description when i searched online, then today as I’m taking my trash can out to the curb i notice these sacs about the size of plump pea underneath the trash lid, they were a mix of yellow,tan,white with spikes…looked up the description and it turns out we have brown widow spiders in our backyard…..not happy at all….I HATE ANY KIND OF SPIDER
I AM IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND FOUND THIS SPIDER IN MY BATHROOM AND THERE IS ANOTHER ONE IN MY BACK YARD THAT IS MUCH LARGER. CAN ANYONE HELP ME IDENTIFY IT? FROM MY RESEARCH ONLINE IT SEEMS TO BE A BROWN WIDOW BUT I AM NOT SURE.
I am twelve years old, my sister is ten and we were cleaning our bathroom when I noticed a sock moving around. I picked it up and I saw THE BIGGEST BROWN WIDOW I have ever seen. It’s entire body was at least the size of my palm, and I have big hands for a girl. It is somewhere in our bathroom cabinetry, and I can’t find it. From the research I have been doing, there are more in the house somewhere, and I don’t know where to look. I also don’t know how it got in the house! Help me!!
At about 11:30 my daughters were playing in there playhouse and they called me. So I went to go check what was wrong and I see an egg sack with spikes on it. My son came and took a look and didn’t know what spider made it. we looked around and he found a spider that was like a black widow. we killed it and got the sac in a teaspoon and burned it. I am keeping my eye out!!!
I have been bitten twice by something in my sleep which I believe to be a spider. Bitten in same leg both times a month apart. Both times my leg looked very red, white, black and blue at the bite and swollen. Treated with comfrey salve and Benadriyl. (Hope I spelled that correctly) I live in Indiana and although I have not seen any brown recluse or what is termed in the widow family we do have a big peanut shaped spider here that is very common and we can find no information on. I also found several spiders in my shop this winter that look exactly like the black widow but have no hour glass. Just wondering if anyone has any information on these two spiders. Have kids and want to find out what is doing this before they get bit.
Susan Dennis, your comments are surprising about this spider. Are you sure we are talking about the same type? I normally love spiders too, but not harmful ones. Please post one of your pictures, holding it in your hand.
Lorraine Wright 3/17/11, I think you saw what is known as a “false black widow”, which have similar look and habits, but are not poisonous to humans. I leave those alone, figuring they are competition against widows.
I have been dealing with these little devils in my yard in San Diego for 5 years. I have posted on this board a few times before, and done some research and corresponded with an entomologist at the SD Natural History museum. Here are a few tidbits of info:
> Brown widows originate in S.Africa and first appeared in the US in Florida and the Southeast about 60 years ago. They have been populating the West Coast in the last 10 years, probably riding in shipping containers. They reproduce rapidly. Since they are an invasive species, no one should feel guilty about killing them.
> Brown widows do not crossbreed with black widows. Brown widows grow darker as they age.
> Brown widows are completely unrelated to the brown recluse.
> Although brown widows are not aggressive, they are not as picky as black widows about where they build their web. So you are more likely to encounter one in commonly used areas, like under patio furniture, under rims of pots or trash barrels, and up under awnings or eaves of the roof. The spider’s resting/hiding spot may be 10 feet or more above its main web, connected by a single thick strand.
> A very strong messy web is a sure sign a widow is near. Especially if there are bones under it (JK!).
> Brown widow venom is more potent than black widows’, but their fangs are smaller and they do not inject as much venom per bite, and only full grown ones are capable of piercing human skin. But don’t take chances! The spider will usually play possum at first if knocked down, but will bite if it feels threatened or is protecting its spiky egg sac.
I’m located in Chino, California which is western San Bernardino County and I just located a Brown Widow Spider on my living room chair in plain site. This bastard was trying to take over. I can’t have this so I am calling a pest control company tomorrow!
I found two Brown Widows today…I only got a picture of one, but I don’t see where to post the picture? These were big and beautiful! Too bad they were on my daughters bike, had to kill them. 🙁
I life in the Tampa Bay area of Florida and I was bit by a brown widow spider a few years ago. Until that time I didn’t even know there was such a beast. I didn’t feel the bite, but the next morning I had a large bump on my back that hurt and was hot. My legs were sore and I felt sick to my stomach. Since it was a Monday morning I went to work and told a few people that I thought I may have been bit by a spider the night before. A friend at work told me to look around the area (my screed in back porch) to see if there were any egg sacs that had spikes and if I found them I would know that I was bit by a brown widow. Well, I found them and I was still feeling really bad. By the time I went to the doctor my legs were really sore and the bit on my back was huge and red. I got a tetanus shot and a shot of antibiotic along with a prescription. The bite took a few days to come to a head and with slight pressure the pus came out, which made it feel a lot better. Now I check under my outside chairs and tables daily since we spend a lot of time outside. Since I know what they are and what they can do I am very careful to keep our porch sprayed and clean. I still find some, but I kill them right away. Keep an eye out for theses spiders. You do NOT want to be bit.
@Gwen sorry for the late reply, and the picture is a little blurry (or I’m just old), but that spider looks like a brown recluse to me. frankly, I’d rather have this existing brown widow bite than the muscle killing, necrotic bite of that evil beast.
I just moved to my late grandmother’s house in Cocoa, FL. Sometime during the moving process I was bitten by what I thought was a noseeum or house spider, but the next day the area had a hard, excruciatingly itchy swelling and I began experiencing severe leg cramps, then later, stomach cramps. I accidentally nicked the bite while shaving and have since developed a severe rash on my leg that looks just like Franca’s husband’s leg. The pain, cramps, and swelling, however, have gone, thankfully.
Yesterday I decided to clean out the cobwebs around the balcony and lo and behold, a brown widow was living under one of the very chairs I had sat down on. After googling the symptoms, I knew she was the one who got me. She’s in spider heaven now, and after a thorough search, I’ve found no egg sacs (yay!), but I went to the store for spider spray anyway. Moral of the story:
Not all spider sprays are equal! Read the labels carefully, and make sure they specifically say they will kill widows and recluses. Walmart sells a brand called Eliminator Ant, Roach, and Spider Killer that does specify that it targets these nasties. Many of the others will say they don’t in the fine print.
MorningSta,
Consider this: The Native Americans were not receiving shipments of produce and other goods from all over the world. Now we are and the shipments sometimes have bugs!
Just read the following out of California on 5/11/2011 find it near the bottom of their page.
They say the Brown is more toxic than the Black!
The brown widow spider is rapidly expanding in California.
A U.C. Riverside researcher predicts the pest may move into Central California this summer.
Brown widow spiders are native to Africa but were found in Southern California in 2009. Researchers say the agricultural community should be worried. The spiders could pose a problem for farm workers if the pests take up residence in fruit orchards. Brown widows could also congregate in agricultural shipping containers or packaging.
Brown widow spider venom is more toxic than black widow venom, but scientists say brown widows are less likely to bite. Instead, they curl up, and play dead when disturbed.
I can take tons of pictures of these. They’re beautiful. They don’t, from the thirty websites I’ve just checked, sound that harmful. I definitely would never kill one. I’ve held them multiple times and not been bitten or seen reactions of aggression. Spiders are solitary and completely uninterested with invading your space and endangering your children. Leave them alone.
I have been studying the latrodectus, since i saw one for first time, i know is 4 species here in Florida. My question is if i get bite for one i can die, what happen and all that stuff, i want to learn more if someone know a lot of them just let me know cause i want to know everything in the staircase of my apt building is a lot of them and is so creepy but everyday that go by i want to know more about them and here in internet is a lot of places saying different things!!!!!
Okay I’m from long beach 42 yrs now… so far my findings of black/brown widows is quite note worthy
in around 2002-2003 i found small spider with brown and yellow patterns on the legs but with the tell tale hour glass on the bottom. It looked like a l.b. garden spider except the red marks caught my eye, so i kept the spider and raised it alone thinking that it would die fairly soon. after 3 months i fed it and it grew molted and became just like the picture above from Lakewood. Here is where it gets strange I did the research and NO-ONE knew of this spider here in Ca. So over the next year I fed it a few bugs here in there.then it molted… AGAIN! this is not normal in any black widow life pattern from my readings. this spider became the largest BLACK WIDOW that I or any of my friends or family have ever seen… that’s right i t turned solid BLACK. most widow spiders live around 12 -16 months this one lived to 25 months and died of starvation I assume.
Wait! there’s more… so i moved from near El Dorado park area in 2004 to a different area, after only seeing that one spider I forgot about it til’ my son and friends found a few big brown widows at our new house near Pavilions. I eliminated all the ones i could find realizing they like our l.b. recycle/trash cans that always had the stiff web on them but they came back over an over and over. then one day a neighbor with an OLD car from around the block drove it by on sweeper day. BAMM! ther they were all under his car that gets moved once a week for 30 syr. I follow him and tell him he doesn’t believe me. so I look at his car further and they have been dropping babies (brown wids) all thru the neighbor hood every week for years and years. so I notify the l.b. board of health and they verify my findings and told about the Brown Widow invasion from Florida happening her in l.b./ Lakewood areas. He told me I had found a cross breed originally, when the widow went from brown to black he had never heard of such a thing. So its going on and Brown Recluse spiders as well. I know 5 people bitten by Recluse spiders in l.b. in the last 5 years he also confirmed that news. He told me to watch the cans, old cars and places like wood piles or even the senior neighbors garages. My last note is this- don’t smash or step on these spiders barefooted or shoes! they produce a female hormone that attracts all sorts of spiders possibly into your house from on your shoes after you smash them via the “chemical smell” of another spider.
When a Recluse gets on you “flick it off” DO NOT SMASH IT! it will be forced to bite even harder when its pressed down upon just like a bee would do, this could inject massive amounts of venom that could kill you if bitten on the neck or chest. also spiders can hold there breath up to 72 hrs so normal insecticides may not work be sure to use “spider quality” poisons away from kids etc. so that sums it up I guess, I battled widows for 5 yrs and didn’t win. I moved again and they still hang out on my brand new l.b. trash cans.
Good Luck and call your board of health or exterminator!
You people love your pesticides don’t you? Did you know that Native Americans lived in harmony with other creatures, without bug spray, pest control or traps?. Fear, fear and more fear rules your hearts and minds, when will you stop being afraid of death?……
well I just seen the news a few days ago. they said they are coming to Fresno, CA. but they have been here for a while but we just had not paid attention since they weren’t black.. but now by looking in this website I realize that we’ve been sounded by them for a while…nothing we could do but kill spray and hope they never bite us..
I just sprayed a brown widow spider that had built a web on my gate latch in the back yard here in Los Angeles. Thank God I noticed it before I stuck my hand on it. When I saw the orange spot on it’s abdomen I immediately searched the web and came to this blog. I’ve found black widows hidden in the dark of my garage before but this is the first time I’ve seen a brown widow spider, and in broad daylight no less.
4/02/11 2:30 PM. I just killed one of the brown widows..it looked exactly like the first picture above, light brown, orange belly. I immediately came inside to search and read about it on the web. Sorry that I did not take a pic, I just read the suggestion on top.
I was washing an empty trash can to put my dog’s food in there. I have seen black widows there before, and this is why I opted to use water pressure to clean the trash can. To my surprise, I did not find a black widow, but the can did have this enormous looking brown ugly spider…I’m getting creeped out all over again. I turn on the water on high…begin to wash, and as I turn it on the spider, this thing is not going anywhere! I knew it was a serious spider. I added more pressure by putting my thumb on the hose outlet, and still, this thing came on getting up and going into it’s corner. I looked for a LONG twig, and I felt it’s web…wow! It was like I was trying to remove cotton. No wonder I could not get the spider out of there.
I left out to say that when I initially turned the trash can over, I noticed about 3 huge spider eggs. So, I thought to myself, bingo, black widow! I washed out the eggs…which I just let flow down with the water, now that I am thinking about it, and then I noticed the spider deeper inside a corner of the can, on the reverse side of the handle. I have two more similar cans..I will see if I have more and I’ll take pictures. Reading everyone’s comments above, it seems like these spiders multiply fast…I just hope that I do not have a problem with these guys.
Thank you, just wanted to share my recent experience with the brown widow.
Ooops we live in Burbank, California. (brown widows)
In 2000 I got bit by one that was hiding in my car – Ugh – under my brake pedal eek! I felt a little scratch….didn’t know what it was (then 20 later felt the sick stomach and bit of fever) I thought I got stung by a bee, later the next day began a very bad 2 weeks of not being able to walk (it bit me right on a tendon on the top of my foot near the big toe). It was terrible, feeling like glass shards were in my foot every move, when the pain stopped it actually came back nearly a month later – I was unable to walk, my whole leg wouldn’t work I was at a party and had to be carried up the hill “how embarrassing eh”?
So I would say they are extremely poisonous if bitten on the hand or a tendon? I had never seen one before and just this year only I’ve seen zillions and weirdly they’ve chased the black widows away – I think I miss them because they are easier to find and don’t live in “Trees” like these do – be careful of any clump of leaves – and they love plastic furniture “never would catch a black widow doing that!
Has anyone out there seen a black widow that is dark burgundy color without an hourglass marking on it? This looks identical to black widow in all other ways.
I live in Mobile, Alabama and i just learned that im getting my grandmother’s car, that hasn’t been used in a while, so i go to check the car out and notice about 3 prickly egg sacks sitting under the door hinge, and there are also two open egg sacks in the floor board. How am i suposed to get rid of an infestation in a car? Any suggestions?
I know were to look for them. By our house i find these brown widow spiders. They love the plastic chairs you put on your stoop. Lots of corners there. I kill them and to my knowledge the brown one are more poisonous than the black one. i found seven on one of my searches. Killed them all but funny enough there was also two males with each female spider. They walk on the stoop to find these chairs and what stops them from coming into my house from under the door. I have twins of four years of age. Told and warned about spiders – especially this kind.
One picture on the wall of my kitchen- this to identify to them and i also killed them in front of the kids with warnings of how dangerous they are. I’m very careful when killing them- long strong stick.
I have found two Brown Widow adults in my house in less than a week. Both had webs on legs of furniture. A good sign of a Widow spider is the presence of a dead male spider (much smaller than the female) in the web. The Widow will generally hide during the day and venture out on the web at night. Take a flashlight and once you spot them, spray to kill. I live in Northwest Florida and this is the first time I have encountered the Brown Widow. The part I don’t like is they seem to be comfortable inside the house.
I live in Slidell, LA and I just found a brown widow today. It was under the handle of a blue plastic storage box that I was cleaning up. I took a bunch of pictures today, and since I was squirting the box with a hose to clean it, I think I knocked off some babies into the dirt. 🙁
I ended up spraying the spider with some hot shot hornet spray. It died pretty quickly. My little babies play under my house as that it is 15 ft in the air, so now I am worried. I live next to the marsh so, unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to be my last encounter with a poisonous creature.
I went to my backyard and I saw those spiky egg sacs everywhere… I live in Mira Mesa, part of San Diego… sprayed them right away… Thank God they didn’t open.. but I still need to find them and kill them off!
We have them in the oc and in la at my gmas. I noticed the black widows close to the house and the brown widows toward the garage. My dad holds a pest control lic. So he told me any dark place (under out door chairs, kids toys like trikes and power wheels. Kids play houses ) they like that. We changed bulbs to yellow light to reduce insects coming to the back porch area. Also we took terro spider spray and every other month we spray spider spray. I like terro brand spider spray. But spraying the big ones suck. The small ones die the big ones fight. I had about an inch of the foam covering the spider and it kept charging me. It made it about a foot and a half from the trash can before it died.
So far so good. We’ve been vigilant and its been about 2 years…occasionally we get an egg sack. But we kill it and spray everywhere asap and so far so good.
Hope this info helps.
Chandler AZ- I caught a brown spider with bright red spots going down it’s back, did lots of research and found out that it was actually a Brown Widow! Looks JUST like the spiders in the pictures on this website. I’ve had it for a few months now, feeding it & keeping it for observation at my work and I just realized that the bright red spots on it’s back are GONE! Can Brown Widows lose their spots as they get older? Or do they fade if they are in captivity? Is this is just normal? Please help me figure this out, thanks!
After getting bit in the arm,I cleaned out my living room looking for this spider. I have finally identified it as a brown widow spider. We found the egg sack which helped to identify it. The egg sack has little spikes around it, where there black widow egg sack is smooth.
My symptoms started as headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting and very tired. I then found a lot of pain in my arm and a lot of redness and ugly. I went to the Doctor and I had a staph infection. I insisted on Bactrim, knowing it was for bad spider bites. The pain lasted for 1 week and is finally getting better.
I needed to get into a storage box I keep in a closet in the garage. As I was looking through the papers, I opened a velo-bound deposition transcript. I flipped through the pages, and there it was — a big light-brown spider. I’d say, not counting the length of its legs (I think 3 pairs and not very hairy) it probably was an inch long. It had a round body and a round head. It felt like his eyes were staring at me. I grabbed a piece of a paper-towel that was within my reach and tried catching the intruder, but before I knew it, he had jumped to the floor and disappeared faster than my eyes could follow him. I haven’t gone near the closet since. What is totally unclear is how could he live in a book and having a round body. It wasn’t flat. Next question, how does one catch a spider, if it, in fact, was a spider and not a bug. Could I use some sort of pestiside that I could put in the closet?
So I have always found spiders to be very fascinating, even though I have been bitten once by a brown recluse and very recently by a brown widow. I didn’t see the spider actually bite my leg, however 2 days later the was huge and gross and had most of the symptoms of a black widow bite. After feeling like I was having a mild stroke, i.e numbness to my left side, abdominal pain, nausea, fever, sweats, and the bite which i originally thought was a mosquito, was now hard, red all around it and tripled in size and it was leaking…I went to the ER.
Originally both myself and the ER doctor, thought with symptoms and the bite it was a Black Widow. However I started doing a little research and discovered the brown widow. I never came across the spider, and I know with black widows they generally only bite you when they are disturbed. However the brown widow is alot more aggressive and like to hang out near humans.
I started thinking back to a few months ago when I saw this crazy looking spider munching on a small frog in a web on my back porch. Now I know it was a brown widow, wished I had taken pictures. I didn’t kill just wrapped the web on a stick and brought it to the edge of the woods behind my house. Yesterday after determining that I was most likely bitten on my back porch, I started checking everywhere, with raid in hand. I didn’t see and live spiders, lots of dead insects in various webs. Well low and be hold under one of my patio chair I found 2 egg sacs. One was already hatched and another had not. I looked up brown widow egg sacs and they were pretty much identical. I disposed of the live sac by moving the chair to the back yard, and stomping the sac. I hate killing spiders, but I cant have these things all over my house. I have since sprayed the perimeter of my house. They had hatched right under where I was sitting. Also my bite was on the back of my leg.
Hey guys don’t mess with any of those spiders. I’ve been bitten by most of them and I swear when u get bit by a premature black widow it hurts. If they have spots on them and a red hourglass that is a premature black widow.
I’m a woodworker and we have black and brown widows all over the shop. My boss kept one as a pet and it made two egg sacks in captivity. The eggs hatched and we counted at least 93 from one sack! They are riding on the wood deliveries from mostly Oregon. I just recently caught a brown widow and kept it as a pet in the shop. I would feed it flies and crickets. I could not find any bugs around today so I let her go outside on a telephone pole. I miss her already! That may mean we have an infestation! I’ll get some pics of the ones in the shop. I had to exterminate some with lacquer thinner because they were making nests under the table saw…where we reach our hands in!
I heard about the brown widow about a year ago on my local news, then about a few months later I was looking under an old grill lid I saw this spider and it was a brown widow. It was brown and it had a hour glass shape on it’s bottom. I was so amazed! I just left it alone, I was not sure if it was as bad as the black widow. A month or two later I was messing around in my yard and I was lifting things up and under a wheel barrel was a brown widow (It was dead) and beside it was about 4 egg sacks. I was not sure that I want a bunch of baby brown widows in my yard so I put the egg sack in the trash can.
I’ve dealt with these for quite a while now in Orange, CA. My favorite method of eradication is night hunting. I take a flashlight and a can of WalMart carburetor cleaner spray and look in the usual locations. One little blast of the powerful jet of carb cleaner and they’re incapacitated. Then a little squish under the shoe makes double=sure they’re dead. The spray costs $1 for a large can and evaporates completely so it’s perfect for just about anywhere. (It can dissolve some plastics and don’t use it on non-colorfast textiles.) If you’re really into it the spray is very flammable and you can use it to torch the egg sacks. (I don’t do that because it leaves black scorch marks.) Whatever you do, don’t ever hide one of those egg sacks inside an object and send it to an arachnophobic person. Opening a package and finding hundreds of tiny, poisonous spiders could make a person go completely insane. I used to get about a dozen large and two dozen small widows in a night during the spring bloom, but now I only see about 1 large and 4 small ones if I haven’t done it for a few months. Since I enjoy it, I just might volunteer to hunt my neighbor’s yards ;-b
To Jerry-
Beg to differ on your comment. They are running rapid in the Tierra Santa area of San Diego. Specifically the military housing area. I found them constantly, and I was born and raised here and am very used to Black Widows. When I saw these I was a bit perplexed. Did some searching around and sure enough… Brown Widows.
Is this a brown or black widow? The legs make me think it’s a brown, but the hourglass looks so black widowy I’m not sure. Found her under my apartment window in LA
My adult daughter was bitten by a spider and ended up needing medical attention in an ER. The doctor determined that she was bitten by a Brown Widow. She was throwing up blood and covered with lesions. She is recovering but thankfully it wasn’t a small child bitten instead.
i live in Moreno Valley, Ca. and my daughter found a brown widow in our back porch on 11/03/10
Found this one on my front porch. Riverside CA
These spiders are all over Florida. I Iive in Vero Beach and see them daily under plastic chairs, grills, and in car fenders.The point is be careful where you put your hands. I don’t want to get bit as i am sure you don’t
I live in Santee CA and there are a ton of the brown widows outside my apartment. My building is a tan stucco and at first I thought the spider morphed or adaptation happened that made it light in color. I could see the hour glass figure on the under belly, so I knew it was a widow. I sprayed near an egg sac and 3 brown widows came running out. All together there were 6 around 1 window. They do have the spiky egg sac, so look for those. I hate spiders, and yes they are pretty resilient.
Brown Widow Spider
Hey there! I just found my first brown widow today in my own house! ^_^;
Although I really don’t like spiders, I never really had any inclination to squish them. When I found this brown widow, I scooped it off the wall with a fishnet and put in a small fishbowl to keep it contained until both my parents could see it. It has an irregular red stripe down its back with some smaller red spots on the side. It has a fairly decent sized hourglass on the bottom of the abdomen as well. Its markings are not as orange as some of the other brown widow photos I’ve seen, and there is a light tan band around the edges of the red markings.
Here’s the back of the abdomen:
And the front with the hourglass:
Side view with spots:
Live in North San Diego County, Carlsbad, just found 6 on my back patio!! All with full egg sacks. They live where black widows live.
how do you raise them.?
that sounds like something i would want to try carefully of course.
send me a picture if you haven’t found out already, they could be bott flies or something like that. bott flies lay larva in your skin and have been known to cause holes like that. the pus could actually be a larva. if you are not getting the head of the larva out of the whole, it will just regrow it’s body. tweezers are the best to get them out. then if they look anything like larva, see a doctor and bring the larva in a bag or something. my friend had them recently, he thought they were huge painful pimples.
I can assure you that whatever they are, they are NOT Brown Recluses. Brown Recluses are not native to Ca. There have only been 10 EVER found in Ca. Brown Recluses also do not have any stripes on their legs, they are uniform in color. Also, anything that only has 6 legs is not a spider, it is and insect. Spiders have 8 legs, unless the two “fangs” you speak of are actually the two front legs. You probably wouldn’t be able to see the fangs unless the spider is the size of a tarantula or you actually picked up the spider and looked at its face close up.
hi my name is Bekka and i live in Ontario with my family and they found a very rather large spider in our backyard. and personally we have never seen big spiders in Ontario. we have photos that i will be sending in. but they couldn’t get any abdomen photos. so please can u figure out what we have in our back yard as i am pregnant and we have also a small child in my family =S thank you
Description :
– a rather large dark tan color with light tan stripes.
– legs that look like they have spikes on them with a black and gray pattern to them
Brown Widow Spiders displace the more aggressive Black Widow and are a lot less likely to bite. I think that is a good trade off. Leave them alone.
i noticed three spiky egg sacs while i was getting my mail under the mailbox. when i got back in my house i looked up what spider made these types of sacs and it turns out the brown widow does! i haven’t ever heard of them today. i shot them with raid-but the spider wasn’t with the sacs-so i don’t know if it will make more, thanks to this site though now i know what they are! thanks!
btw, I’m in Oceanside California
I got out my shower and found a spider which was orange with black/brown spots but it had no hour glass on it. does anyone know what it is?
Came home today to find a spider inside our apartment! It made itself at home between our fridge and cabinet. I’m glad my cats didn’t see it and get bitten, as they love to play with spiders/bugs found around the house. As soon as i saw it i locked them in bathroom and investigated/killed it. Looks like its a brown widow for sure, my first time seeing or hearing about this species. It recently rained so i think it might have came in somehow from the outside…i hope thats the end of it. Spiders on the outside are fine, just stay out of my home! It made some random webs around the kitchen, it was so strange for a spider that’s supposed to be living outside. I sprayed all over the place, then going to let the management know so that they can spray the premises, hopefully.
I never Knew there were Brown Widow spiders.
There was this really huge, cool looking spider above my entryway- I figured I leave him there to add to the scariness of my Halloween display because where his web was a light & it cast a huge shadow of his spideriness on the entry wall- nice and creepy just in time for Halloween-I thought, I go all out, try and make it creepy and realistic.
Well, today I was hanging my Halloween decorations and when I stepped down off the ladder- there he was ON MY LEG!!! My first response was to squish him, but then I remembered that I wanted him there for Halloween. -That was before I found out he is a Brown Widow, now I’ll have to hunt him down tomorrow and kill it- I thought he was harmless! Lucky he didn’t bite me!!! look at his creepiness in the pic I took of him he’s huge and his web is strong like string! wait how do I put a pic here?
Got bite by a brown widow adult today while doing volunteer work. Hear in Ft Lauderdale they are everywhere, under the little leauges park benches, in the fence near the post. You will often se e only a 2-4 inch tuff of web, well there is a Mama brown inside, be careful. I have killed dozens and will soon be putting up a video on youtube to show the infestation., Funny thing is I have known about these spiders for over a year.
Today while installing political signs in a empty lot filled with stickers and weedS. I felt a bite and figured it was one of many stickers that I had in my shoe and shocks. I looked a moment later to pick out the stickers and there was a brown between the lip of my shoes and my shock, He must have gotten pinched between the lip of my shoe and ankle as I was walking through the weeds. He was slightly banged up and I finished him off after taking a picture or two of him.
I had a slight chest cramp throughout the day. The area is a little red and hurts to the touch, I in the recent past bought Brown Recluse First Aide Kit, I am applying the first paultice. Anyone every used this product for a brown?
Great forum.
Jay
wethepeoplepress on youtube
I work at a nursery and was breaking down plant tables today. I saw and killed at least six black widows but also saw others that were the same body type and shape, etc. but lighter brown and with odd red spots outlined in yellow on their backs. There is even one like this above my garage door. I am so glad I looked at this site. I have been in the garden business for years including pest control and never knew these guys existed. I will definitely deal with them swiftly as I am asthmatic and would probably die from a bite.
Bonsall & Costa Mesa, California. For sure they are invading!! I heard two years ago about the brown widow. Never encountered them until this month September 2010. Found two under plastic yard chairs. Always check under your outside furniture, its a for sure love of spiders. I always find a black one every year. What was unusual this year is that I found two together. So I looked it up and sure enough it was the brown widow. The legs and the hour glass tipped us off. But the egg sacks were unusually spiked!! Weird like a sci fi movie.
Went home and thought I wouldn’t find any in my small back yard at home. BS!! It was a freaking invasion. I had read that they are more gutsy- in where they pick their homes, more out in the open. Well they did, I had two reclining chairs on their side. I killed 8 and egg sacks. All together living happily ever after. Thats what threw me off. Usually you have the black territorial about her space. Not these brown ones. Sure enough there were small spiders and eggs sacks. I sprayed and squashed everything. So I began to think “oh man look at this whole back yard its covered in tropical plants and nook and crannies to hide. There could be hundreds. Went to look under another vinyl bench on the lawn killed probably 10 more hanging in every area of the bench.
Freaking infestation like that!! These boogers are not alone if you see one dont think your done because there is more hiding in that same area or web. Watch out and good luck!! Im totally getting a professional spray and hitting up the webs and the border of the property to cut down on the population. Also having the yard keep cleaner and getting rid of the crap. Totally dont want them in the house or outside!!! I love good spiders too! Even the big ones!! But I am anti Brown Widow for sure!!!!! One of the nastiest spiders I have ever seen!! Help cut down the population! Treat your areas. They have powders and sprays or even go on a hunt. But for sure they multiply rapidly.
A few weeks back, new flowers & small palm trees were added to the small gardens in our condominium building. As a Macro-Photographer, I have been following one or two common orb weavers in the taller bushes. Tonight, I saw a bit of orange/red on the underside of a small spider, so I took a photo. Much to my surprise, I think that I found a Brown Widow. Close-up attached.
I was bitten by a brown widow yesterday, it was very painful but now I am good. I mean I’m not feeling any pain though I have a headache.
Okay i know what a widow spider is, but i have seen 3 different brown widows, at work are brown everywhere!! i mean a lot just one problem no hourglass more like Grey abdomen everything else is just like it especially their legs, at my house i notice a bunch of widow spider on my outside window wen i when to dust it, they were tiny more like mini brow widow even their eggs sac were mini but they had a white stripe on the top of their abdomen and no noticeable hour glass i even notice a male bit to small to keep track of it. the egg sac indicated that they are brown widow but no hourglass. it seem to be that the one with the orange hour glass is more thinner than the other spider, maybe different species of brown widow!
We had black widows in The East Bay area of San Fran they are very common in garages near cold damp places as well as water pipes. When we were moving we found so many of them in the garage only one tried to come out us. You must spray them when you find them. Here in Orange country we found the Brown Widow they make their webs at dusk so that is when you must go out and spray them. Last year we found 14 of them and this year I found their egg sacks everywhere especially around the pool.
The mother will protect her sack by her body and she will try and stay and fight for it. So far we have killed 4 of them so a better number than last year but Sept. seems to be the time of year the webs come out. My husband almost got bit so we are on alert they also love the grape vines. You must kill them they will only come back in larger numbers the next year and the risk of getting bit is totally not worth it.