Having uncovered several red-back spiders in Sydney, Australia, I guess I'm preprogrammed to be fearful of anything that's small, black and has a splash of red.
it seems you are not alone in being worried about things with "a splash of red", I did a search to see if there were any articles about why Black Widows have that red spot, and it seems like having that splash of red on a small black object might discourage at least some types of birds from trying to eat whatever that object is.
Honestly, I wish I'd know how chill they were as a child. I fell in a basement window alcove thing, and it had a black widow in it. I knew just enough to recognize it and be afraid of it (the giant model of one at the Boston science museum probably didn't help my fear), and was convinced it was going to kill me. It's a bit surreal to remember that experience, from the vantage point of having gotten over my arachnophobia.
My property (south Carolina) once had black widows for years. Then brown widows replaced them for a few years. Now there’s not a trace of them. What I have seen are geckos which are not native here. I suppose the geckos have wiped them out
Thank you for this video, I have always had arachnophobia. Living in the southwest I've seen many black widows. I've been bitten four times, but I have always though that they were aggressive by nature. After your video challenged my bias, all it took was checking my knowledge here with a quick google search to find they are in fact very "shy". If you live in areas where they might be, just check areas where you might squish them, like shoes, or a bag before you reach in. They seem to only bite if you squish them, like the video says.
Speaking of the iconic Black Widow hourglass shape, I just did an internet search for why they have that spot, and popular science article that cited some research indicating the red spot might be to scare off birds, and that the spot is only a spot, instead of the whole spider being red, so they do not scare off any beetles, or insects. There is my TIL contribution for the day.
I guess why people are afraid of them have something to do with popular media. I don't necessarily mean anything very new 😅... And something about them having poison. Or venom. I can't remember, right now, and in my native tongue it's the same word, so that doesn't help.🫣 Cool stuff, nonetheless 😎👍
