North America Black Widow

... yaaaaa i killed it with a can of axe and a lighter.... i don't have a camera phones old school sry for no pics. i don't take kindly to poisonous spiders living on my front door.

PS Mike: quite right about the pattern differences which should be a consideration when identifying many arthropods, but it is important to note that what was described as "L. mactans" now refers to 3 separate species, "L. mactans", "L. variolus" and "L. hesperus" Matthew: how bout spotting the specimen on your front door, most likely "L. variolus" based on range/distribution, but would be interested to see if you could get a couple of clear shots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus

"Latrodectus mactans", sometimes called the Southern Black Widow "Latrodectus variolus", the Northern Black Widow Difficult one, but on studying many images of the 2 species, the latter ("L. variolus") is a more likely identification. The distribution of the two species overlaps considerably, so unfortunately distribution is not really a contributing point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus

i have one living on my fount door. i had no idea what it was, looked like a black widow but the red '!' baffling. I live in Wenatchee Washington.

Gina is correct,the typical hourglass you would expect to actually varies greatly and may not be present in all due to numerous variables occurring during growth. I have seen them with the perfect hourglass to none present at through the years.

This is called the North american Black widow. The North American Black Widow, which produces a venom 15 times more toxic than a rattlesnake, has one of the most resilient spider webs. The silk is stronger than steel of the same density while also being elastic and flexible. .

Looks like a red back spider..but Black Widow being in the USA