Surviving Sex with Black Widows
In the case of the North American black widow, Latrodectus hesperus, the Arizona experiments reveal that male black widows can detect telltale chemical signals on the webs of females. They can smell which females are well-fed and which are hungry, which leads to a simple choice: Which one is less likely to eat them?
Skin Lesions Often Misdiagnosed as Spider Bites
The report pointed out that necrotic lesions on the skin are typically not the result of spider bites and often have more common causes, such as staph infections or Lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria carried by deer ticks.
