Brown Widow

Yesterday, as me and Randy were organizing outdoor patio items for our move, I happened to flip over a wood table and underneath I spied three very round spider egg sacs...very different egg sac then I have ever seen before; very round, white with protrusions all over. Tucked back in the corner I saw the Mama spider, huddled and hiding. Deciding to spare all this hard work I left the eggs and spider alone, deciding that I would leave the table in San Clemente. Today, as Randy was picking up our patio chairs he came across the same spiders (2 adults) and 6 more egg sacs and decided to call me down to take a viewing of the adults. Sure enough, they had identical bodies to a common Black Widow, but were speckled tan, white and brown with orange hour-glass shapes on their abdomnen. I thought, surely, they are just langushing and their color fading. Our curiousty got to both of us and we decided to turn to our dear friend, laptop. With just a few minutes of research we discovered that these spiders are a species of the Widow family (over 30 species) and they are very rare to the Los Angeles area. Orignally from Africa, moved to the tropics, scientist speculate that the brown widow arrived through imports and settled in the area. Only 3000 have been found in California!! The Brown widow is less aggressive then the very aggressive Black widow ( I and Maia can attest to this), but the venom is twice as strong!! Yikes, to think my fingers were mere inches away from the adult. Randy disposed of 1 adult, and 7 of the egg sacs. But feeling pity for them we saved two adults and 2 eggsacs. Creepy!!