The notorious black widow spider, 90% of the reason why your mom warns you before you put on your shoes, is facing possible extinction!
And this isn't due to humans finally battling back, no. The spiders could potentially be on their way out thanks to their own cousins!
According to StudyFinds, the smaller, but equally venomous, brown widow spiders are preying upon black widows, and drastically reducing their numbers.
Louis Coticchio, who led a study as part of his undergraduate research at the University of South Florida said, "We have established brown widow behavior as being highly aggressive towards the southern black widows, yet much more tolerant of other spiders within the same family."
According to his research, over the past couple decades black widows have been disappearing from parts of the United States, with the brown widows growing in population, with some now outnumbering black widows 20 to one in some areas.
A black widow's bite is reportedly up to 15 times more potent than that of a rattlesnake. Brown widow venom causes less severe reactions to humans than black widows, and bites to humans are very rare.
Coticchio's research also found that brown widow spiders aren't often found inside homes, and are shy against larger predators.
"They are very shy when harassed by humans or larger animals that are not considered prey," he says. "They will run or roll up into a ball and play dead when being attacked or harassed by most other animals outside of their prey range."
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