File:Black Widow (Latrodectus mactans) The Western Widow (2800388371).jpg

The black widow spider is a group of spiders which includes the southern black widow (Latrodectus mactans), the northern black widow (Latrodectus variolus), and the western black widow (Latrodectus hesperus). As the name indicates, the southern widow is primarily found in (and is indigenous to) the southeastern United States, ranging from Florida to New York, and west to Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona, where they run particularly rampant. The northern black widow is found primarily in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada, though its ranges overlap that of L. mactans quite a bit. The western widow is found in the western United States, as well as in southwestern Canada and much of Mexico. Black widows range in the southern parts of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario - especially on the Bruce Peninsula. They are often confused with the False Black Widows. Female black widow spiderLatrodectus sp. This is an unnamed species of Latrodectus from Jalisco state, Mexico

Prior to 1970, when the current taxonomic divisions for North American black widows were set forth by Kaston[1], all three varieties were classified as a single species, L. mactans. As a result, there exist numerous references which claim that "black widow" (without any geographic modifier) applies to L. mactans alone. Since common usage of the term "black widow" makes no distinction between the three species (and many people are unaware of the differences between them).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus_mactans

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