Are southern black widows communal?

[ispectechular]

I am looking into getting a southern black widow, however, I am finding little info about them. I was trying to figure out if they are communal or not.

 

[Poonjab]

Yeah. You can throw a few in together. I use to do it as a kid. No issues

I do want to note that when I did keep them communally, it was no more than a month or so, until my mom made me set them free. They were also well fed. So for a long term basis, I don’t know how long they will live in harmony. This was just my personal experience.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

No, they are not communal.

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

I'm not sure about that species in particular but I know some Latrodectus females in the wild will form groups to some extent.

 

[pannaking22]

They're communal if you want one really well-fed individual.

It may be possible to keep them communally if you give them lots of different areas to web in, basically giving each individual a space where it can construct its web without a ton of competition. That and feed them all very regularly. But I wouldn't be too sure about it long-term.

 

[NYAN]

No. They will eat each other.

 

[The Snark]

No. They will eat each other.

In a nutshell.

There were some studies done on this, most notably for a high end optic company that harvested the Latrodectus webs. An odd phenomenon was noted. Each widow knows it's own web. It has some sort of mnemonic signature in it's brain. The web becomes a sensory organ unique to the particular animal.that made it. They will occasionally build webs adjacent to each other but if one crosses the boundary it automatically becomes prey and the trespasser is unable to utilize the alien web effectively.

 

[Poonjab]

In a nutshell.

There were some studies done on this, most notably for a high end optic company that harvested the Latrodectus webs. An odd phenomenon was noted. Each widow knows it's own web. It has some sort of mnemonic signature in it's brain. The web becomes a sensory organ unique to the particular animal.that made it. They will occasionally build webs adjacent to each other but if one crosses the boundary it automatically becomes prey and the trespasser is unable to utilize the alien web effectively.

That’s crazy. Good info.

 

[Ghost56]

Definitely not communal and certainly cannibalistic, BUT they don't tend to move much at all once they build their web. They also tend to be in somewhat close proximity to each other in the wild from what I've observed. So I would think you could likely setup a large enclosure with predictable webbing areas and house more than one. As others mentioned though, if one does happen to wonder into anothers web, it'll become a meal without a doubt.