Red-back black widow spiders in Sharjah (UAE) and in Palos Verdes Estates, California (USA)

I will dedicate an entire section area to the category of spiders.  This is the first entry, in the category of spiders but it is not day #1 of the story.  I will write more on this topic.  I intend to write many stories about spiders and myself, the relationship of spiders with me and vice versa.  Stories that are emerging from my memory.

Tonight, I am thinking of the Red-back black widow spiders in Sharjah and in Palos Verdes Estates.

Today, at lunchtime, my daughter and I found one in the kitchen cupboard.  The one we found was identical in appearance with those shown below in these photographs, at least to my laymen’s eye:

In these photos, one of the three specimens is a female.  The female in one of these photos is a unique female variety because it does not have the red dot(s).  The other two specimens are male.  I applaud your scholarship if you figure out the differences in some visual way, if there any-I am not informed about spiders from any scientific way, and I am not a spider expert in any sense, but I recall that the female bite is much worse for humans than the male bite- Does the male bite?

This is the second one we have found recently, but the first one that was inside our house.  The main point is that we found one of these critters in a popular place in our kitchen where we definitely can not tolerate lethal spiders.  I’ll try to deconstruct my apparent pathological anxiety about poisonous forms of life that co-exist in my midst at some other time.

We found the spider in the cupboard above the sink.  This area is in constant use by the whole family all day and night. My daughter, Kacie, was the first to encounter it as she put cups away in the cupboard.  She screamed and jumped backwards.  I can not figure what this male would be seeking in our cupboard.  Solace? Alone time?  A bachelor pad? Hunting grounds for ?, how did it reach the cupboard—of course this is combined with all the rest of the concern about my youngest son, or my other family members, getting popped by one on the fingertip.  It’s says something about my inherent limits as a embracing tolerator of all forms of life, but the lethal spider expunges my hospitality.  Yes, I am larger than most spiders, probably all spiders, so what do I have to fear, but…well you know what I mean, they are deadly spiders.  More later…