Latrodectus Pallidus

[Splintercell]

Hello,

Here is some first hand information about the Latrodectus Pallidus
also known as the white widow spider (Israel).
(I have Latrodectus Pallidus spiders myself.)
They are the most amasing hunters I have seen
(in the latrodectus family I mean)
The female has brown, yellowisch legs and head(with darker spots on the joints of the legs) and a complete white, shiny body with 4 spots/markings on it (little tiny brown dots, very little).
The hourglas marking is Yellow, brownisch, like seen on L. Geometricus spec.
The male is likewise but it has darker spots on the joints of the leggs (darkbrown).
The spider builds a real cool web. It has a retraet at the top
and a sort of platform in the middle of the web. When active, the spider sits(hangs)on this horizontal platform to hunt. From this platform there are hanging some few singel "ropes" who are under tension (via construction of the web)
and have some sticky residue at the endings
(close to the attachment of the "rope" on the ground)
When a criquet touches this sticky part, the trap will go of and lift the criquet into the air where it stays glued to the wire and is helpless, since it can not touch the ground.
Now, the L. Palidus comes and does here thing.
The L. Pallidus is very shy. Sometimes, even when I just open the container each spider is in, they let themselve drop immidiatly. Also, they do not attack pray that is larger then themself.Things that cant be liftet arn't attacked. (unless you let the pray fall into the net and the spider is verry hungry, of course)
They live in Israel. Atleast, that is where my L. pallides spec. come from.
They prefer 28 to 35 degrees CELCIUS (not fahrenheit!!!) at day and about 20 degrees CELCIUS !!! at night. Of course they prefer shadow and darkness, like every Latrodectus. The bite is relatively harmless. A bit is less toxic than the L. geometricus; so... it's harmless, but still very painfull!!!

I hope to have given you al some usefull information.
If you have questions, don't hasitate to ask.
Kind regards from Belgium, Tom.

 

[CaptainChaos]

Nice! A picture of them would be very nice

 

[Venom]

Hey thanks for the info on L. pallidus SplinterCell! We don't hear too much about them here in the states.

 

[Tony]

http://images.google.com/images?q=Latrodectus+Pallidus&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images

 

[Steven]

nice to see other Belgium Latrodectus fans

welcome !

 

[Splintercell]

Pallidus Pics

Hello,

I have just a small Webcam; but hey, later today I will
make some nice pics and put them here online.

kind regards, Tom.

 

[Splintercell]

Hello,

Here are 2 pictures of one of my subadult female Latrodectus Pallidus spiders.
I know, the quality is bad, but it is just a simple small webcam.
I have some more pics (better, but not SUPER) but they are about
225 KB and this forum only accepts pics up to 100 KB, so ...problem.
How can I convert them to 100 KB instead of the 225 KB?
Well, enough schatter,... here are the pics.

PS: I will make some other pictures soon.
Maybee tomorrow if I have the time.

Greetz, Tom.

 

[jarrell]

nice splinter cell. dont see this often in the hobbzy. :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[CaptainChaos]

She´s a beauty, congratz
Maybe bad quality but from a webcam i think thats good quality :clap:
I use Photoshop to get the pics smaller. Use some program like that or you could ask someone else to do that for you.
I like the looks of Pallidus more than Mactans!
If only i could get my hands on those :drool:

 

[Splintercell]

Latrodectus Pallidus Subadult Male

Hi,

Here is a pic of the subadult male Latrodectus I have.

Thanks for the nice comments of ya all ;-)
It is really a wonderfull spider.

Kind regards, Tom.

 

[Jonathan]

Hi,
That snare/trap that they build sounds very interesting. Very cool.
Jon

 

[Splintercell]

Hi,

Yes it is ;-)
If there is any interest,
I can make a picture of her web
and put it online on this tread.

Kind regards, Tom.

Hi,
That snare/trap that they build sounds very interesting. Very cool.
Jon

 

[CaptainChaos]

That would be very nice
It´s a shame that i could only get my hands on L. Mactans and L. Menavodi because when i look at your pics, i like what i see! So please feel free to post pics and info about those, you have atleast 1 fan

 

[Splintercell]

Latrodectus Pallidus Nest/Web.

Hello,

I promised to make a few pictures of the L. Pallidus web.
However, in the last 2 weeks I have been up every night to
watch this awsome spider and take the pictures promised and...
a problem has occured.
It seems that the pallidus I have, make 2 differtent webs.
(in fact it is just one and the same, I'llexplain later)
In the tread above, I alreaddy explained how the web works(and looks)
However, since I put al my Pallidus specimen in a larger Container
I have observed an other method wich is slightly different.

Here is an attemt to explain the function (both):
I have to revieuw the metod mentionned earlier in this tread.

So, the Pallidus does build a retrait, as mentionned.
Therefor it beginns to build a sort of web at the place she wants here retrait.
When spun a couple of strings, she starts to decend with her rope, from her retrait to the ground. Everytime the pallidus lets itself down, it touches the ground with her behind and glews some wood-,sand-, and other parts on her sticky rope.Than, she gets back up, to here retrait, where she takes the glewy string (with some sand and wood, etc..; glewed on it)from behind her
and puts it in here retrait wher she shapes it like she wants.
If the retrait is readdy, it looks like a sort of cocon.
It gets larger how lower you go. It is about 2 or 3 cm long and the spider fits completely in this retrait where she sits at the top al the time aacept when hunting. (it is really thick, you cant see the spider throuw it because of al the particels sand, wood,etc.. attached to the web.
Now, the difference: She does not build a horizontal platform.
It just looked like that in those small containers.
I will explain the rest by pictures since it gets complicated to explain now:

see pictures on next tread:

Kind regards, Tom.

 

[sammyp]

Very interesting species, and web by the sounds of it.

 

[Splintercell]

pallidus web

Hi,

Here is a design of it.
The real web pictures will follow soon.

kind regards.

 

[Splintercell]

more pallidus pic's.

Hi,

Here are some more pics of my pallidus.
I hope the quality is good enough.

Kind regards, Tom.

 

[Splintercell]

Pics of Latrodectus Pallidus retraite and web.

Hello,

Here are the first pics from the web of my L. Pallidus.
Including retraite, hunting and mating area.
I believe it are the first pics of a L. Pallidus web ever!!!

Kind regards, Tom Simons.

 

[Splintercell]

Pallidus web

So,

What do you all think about this?

Kind regards, Tom.

 

[cacoseraph]

that is pretty similar to how most of the L. heserpus webs i see are. the major difference is that in the wild hesperus find location with a built in retreat so they don't build one like that.

i have never seen much debris in hesperus webs, actually

great pics, diagrams, and spiders