this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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As someone who lives in a place where I have to check any black spiders I see to make sure they're not black widows, that's the first thing I noticed, too. It's not like drawing the hourglass on the bottom makes it harder to see/recognize, especially when the text explicitly identifies it as a black widow.
I guess the artist has never seen an actual black widow and this is done out of ignorance rather than as a conscious design choice. It's possible that there are multiple subspecies of black widow, some of which have the markings on the top, but I've never heard of that. Then again, I'm no biologist...
I'm from Australia and I always thought it was on the top. Turns out our black widow, affectionately known as a redback, has the marking on top. Not sure if the two are actually related, though.
Yes, they are all in the Latrodectus family, all have venom containing the neurotoxin latrotoxin, which causes latrodectism (pain, vomiting, muscle rigidity, sweating).
Australian Redbacks are Latrodectus hasseltii:
New Zealand Katipo are Latrodectus katipo:
Western Black Widows are Latrodectus hesperus:
Southern Black Widows are Latrodectus mactans:
Female:
Male:
Northern Black Widows are Latrodectus variolus:
European Black Widows are Latrodectus tredecimguttatus:
South American Black Widows are Latrodectus corallinus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus
Thank you for the well sourced response.