[sliken]

It's been awhile, but I was reading about black widows. Apparently the better fed they are, the worse the web, so they don't over feed.

A chaotic web is a sign that the black widow spider is well fed and not hungry.

[mech422]

Huh...I didn't know that...the lil S.O.B.s on my porch must be really well fed - the webs are everywhere :-D

Thanks

[sliken]

I'm pretty sure it's generally 1 spider per web, and I thought blackwidows (assuming they are still alive) take down the webs when done. So presumably you have quite a few spiders.

In any case here's a discussion of said paper.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/death-tra....

[mech422]

yeah - I guess it varies but I can usually spot about 5 of them out at night...Thanks for the link!