Redback Spider

Amazing! I pity the male

Steve, I understand that the adult red back spider (our common name for the black widow) has a perfectly straight stripe. The juvenile has an erratic shaped stripe as this one does. I suspect it is a young one. I also expect that an adult will have a fully spherical abdomen and this one hasn't filled out yet. The American black widow is the same species as ours but have an "hourglass" shape red marking. The link shows an american one eating her much smaller male. http://www.physorg.com/news63467462.html

beautiful shot, poor male :)

Beautiful and dangerous!

Simply spectacular..!!

Steve, that's about to be a victim, The male has almost the same color as her.

The Australian widow is one of the most deadly widow spider. Widow spiders are named after the female's habit of eating the male after mating . Only female widow spider are dangerous to people, the much smaller male's fangs are too tiny to penetrate human skin.

Thats the australian one!