The Scary One

Posted by kevinfeenstra on Sun Aug 03, 2014 8:20 pm

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There's not too many poisonous critters here in Michigan but this is one of them. I have visited this black widow spider several times trying to get a good image. She is in a dark corner of a barn. I have tried a lot of different angles with or without flash; this is the best I could do thus far.

1/80@ f9 @ 60 mm. External flash used as fill.

Kevin Feenstra
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by PaiR on Sun Aug 03, 2014 8:28 pm

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Wow..After snakes, may be I am the most afraid of spiders

Well controlled flash - don't see much reflected from the body at all. Great action captured. The prey also being in the frame makes this special.

Ram
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by Carol Clarke on Mon Aug 04, 2014 3:46 am

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You are much braver than me! I would keep well away.....

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by wtracyparnell on Mon Aug 04, 2014 7:06 am

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Great image of this seldom-photographed creature, well done.

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by Matthew Pugh on Mon Aug 04, 2014 8:18 am

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Hi

I think this is a super shot of a scary critter - I think I would suggest a longer focal length, just because I am a coward (laughing)

All the best
Matthew

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by Mike in O on Mon Aug 04, 2014 10:54 am

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One of my nightmares...good capture. Are there different types of widows in N.America? On the West coast ours are jet black with the red hourglass on the tummy.
I just wiki ed the spider and I think you have this critter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steatoda_grossa

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by kevinfeenstra on Mon Aug 04, 2014 12:56 pm

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Mike in O wrote:One of my nightmares...good capture. Are there different types of widows in N.America? On the West coast ours are jet black with the red hourglass on the tummy.
I just wiki ed the spider and I think you have this critter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steatoda_grossa

Hi Mike:

Thank you for your comment. As you can imagine, I have been very careful in identifying this creature. It is definitely a northern black widow, Latrodectus Variolus.

There are a lot of good resources on the net and I tend to use bug guide. This is the page for this spider:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/26421/bgpage

To make sure of the id, I had posted a couple of pictures on that site for ID purposes and they confirmed it was a black widow.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/970913

There are steatodas living within five feet of this spider and there is quite a difference; the widow has long glossy legs and is jet black and is larger.

I really do appreciate the comment and have a great week!

Kevin Feenstra
http://www.kevinfeenstra.smugmug.com

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by Bill Whala on Mon Aug 04, 2014 6:26 pm

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Outstanding capture, Kevin!! I love the markings on the BW. Congrats on your EP.

Bill Whala

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by Missy Mandel on Mon Aug 04, 2014 8:44 pm

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Awesome! Congrats on EP!

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by Tom Whelan on Mon Aug 04, 2014 9:26 pm

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Scary indeed - great pose, love the composition.

Tom

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by jerryb on Tue Aug 05, 2014 3:57 pm

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Very nice comp, and the light BG really make them stand out.

Larger sized samples of my work can be seen on Google Plus at https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JerryBarnettPhoto

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by D7avid on Tue Aug 05, 2014 7:53 pm

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great shot .Excellent detail on both .Black widows are often in the metal boxes that hold the meters around my house.Not much chance for pictures.

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by crw816 on Thu Aug 07, 2014 7:43 am

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Wow. It almost looks like the and expelled one last terrified scream at the end. With her walking away from the prey adds to the story here. Awesome capture. Makes my skin crawl.

Chris White
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