By a Thread

I discovered this Black Widow under our kitchen sink, in a dark corner yesterday.. It pays to be vigilant ;)
I moved it to some potted mint leaves near our back sliding glass door, and shot towards the overcast outside light.

The Southern Black Widow has a shiny, black, globular abdomen with the well known distinctive red hourglass on the underside. Only the female black widow bites humans, and she bites only when disturbed, especially while protecting her eggs. Of the 30,000 'types' of spiders, the black widow is probably the one best known and feared.

The tensile strength of spider silk is comparable to that of steel wire of the same thickness. The density of steel is about six times that of silk, silk is correspondingly stronger than steel wire of the same weight.

F/13, .4 sec, ISO 640, 5D2, Sigma 150mm f/2.8 + 1.4x and flash with a wire & mirror lockup. Manual focus with the emphasis on the spiders distinctive red markings. Near full frame(96%)with Exif data attached.