248 AMERICAN SPIDERS 



comprises a small number of jet-black spiders remarkable for their 

 beautiful red markings and notorious for their venomous properties. 

 Because of their great variability in color pattern, they have re- 

 ceived numerous scientific names; and they have been singled out, 

 given appropriate common names, and indicted by peoples from 

 widely separated regions of the world. 



In southern Europe and Africa bordering the Mediterranean 

 lives Latrodectus tredecim-guttatus, the malmignatte of Corsica and 

 Italy, gaily splashed with red and generally feared by the peasants. 

 Farther to the east, this same species is mostly black; it becomes the 

 "karakurt" or "black wolf" of Russia, and is known by various 

 other names in Arabia, the Gulf of Persia, and in northern Africa. 

 Much farther to the east, in India and Malaya, is found Latrodectus 

 hasselti, whose dorsum is marked by a broad crimson stripe running 

 down to the tip of the abdomen, but which otherwise is very simi- 

 lar to the malmignatte. Under various names, hasselti is found 

 throughout the major islands of the East Indies, and extends down 

 into New Guinea and Australia, even eastward into New Zealand. 

 In Australia, hasselti is known as the "red-back spider"; in New 

 Zealand, as katipo, the night-stinger of the Maoris. 



In southern Africa is found another species of the genus Latro- 

 dectus indistinctus, which has the jet-black abdomen marked above 

 with small white spots, and which is known as the knoppiespin- 

 nekop or "shoe-button spider." Another black species of the Old 

 World is the vancoho or menovadi of Madagascar, Latrodectus 

 menovadi. 



In the Americas, the principal species is Latrodectus mactans, 

 the most dangerous member of the genus and the most feared and 

 notorious of all. Extremely variable in coloration and almost equally 

 abundant in tropical and temperate climates, this species is known 

 by many expressive common names. In the United States it is 

 called the "black widow" (in reference to the popular erroneous 

 belief that the female invariably kills the male following the mat- 

 ing), and also the "hour glass" or "shoe-button spider" common 

 names describing the shape of the red ventral marking and the form 

 of the jet-black abdomen. In the West Indies, it is the cul rouge, 

 or veinte cuatro boras. In Peru, it is lucacha; in Chile, guina or 

 pallu; in Bolivia, mico; and in Argentina, arana del lino. In A4exico, 

 viuda negra is largely replacing the more interesting arana capulina 

 ("cherry spider") of the Mexicans and the chintatlahua of the 

 Indians. 



