Black Widow on the side of my house

While on the subject of nasties that you can find around your house I thought I'd show some pics of a Black Widow one of my kids found on the back of my house. It made a nest under the edge of a window sill on the west side of the house. It is under the porch but still gets a bit of afternoon sun.

Conventional wisdom is that you only find Black Widows in dark, enclosed places. This is the second one I've found with a nest on the outside of a building. The other was up under the eves of a barn. However, most of the Widows I've found have been in attics or under logs like they are supposed to be.

The first pic shows the spider in it's web with it's egg sack.


After I sprayed it with insecticide it first ran to it's egg sack, then dropped out of the nest so I could get some clear pictures. I don't know if the spider was actually going to protect it's egg sack or if it is a coincidence that it ran there first.




You can see the "hourglass" very clearly in this pic. The red is not always shaped like an hourglass.



Shortly after that pic was taken the spider and it's egg sack were converted to small greasy spots on the porch. Then I sprayed the remains with insecticide just in case any little spiders tried to hatch out later.

I like spiders in general but the Black Widow and Brown Recluse spiders have an instant death sentence at my place.