Black Widow Spider
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40 free Black Widow Spider trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few animals have a reputation as large as the black widow spider's, and few deserve it less. The glossy female with the red mark on her belly is real enough, and so is her potent venom, but the stories about how deadly she is, and about what she does to her mates, have grown well beyond the facts. These questions cover the fun facts people look for: how to recognise a black widow, what its venom actually does, how it builds its web and catches a meal, how the much smaller males go courting, and which animals are brave enough to hunt it. There are also questions on its relatives around the world and on the film character, the aircraft and the stars that borrowed its name. The quiz suits curious readers, students working on a spider project and anyone who has ever eyed a woodpile with suspicion. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you with a fact worth repeating.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Black widow spider venom is reported to be 15 times stronger than the venom of which snake?
Rattlesnake
Rattlesnake venom is the famous comparison, yet most people bitten by a black widow suffer no serious damage. The spider is not aggressive and bites only in self-defence.
Q 02Early medical reports of black widow spider bites often described men bitten while using what?
Outhouses
Outhouses were ideal hiding places for the spiders, and the genitals were often where the bite landed. No lasting injury to the area was reported.
Q 03Weight for weight, the silk of the western black widow spider is famously compared with wire made of which metal?
Steel
Steel wire only matches the silk at equal thickness. Because the metal is about six times denser, a thread of widow silk is far stronger than a wire of the same weight.
Q 04The 'widow' in black widow spider refers to what the female sometimes does to a male after mating?
Devours him
She devours him far less often than the legend suggests. Much of the evidence comes from laboratory cages where males could not escape, and in the wild many mates leave unharmed.
Q 05Which red shape marks the underside of the abdomen of most female black widow spiders?
An hourglass
An hourglass is the classic mark, but some females show only two red dots or no marking at all, so a plain black spider is not proof of a harmless one.
Q 06Male black widow spiders cannot harm people mainly because which body part is too short?
Their fangs
Their fangs are too short to get through human skin. Only a mature female's, about a millimetre long, can deliver venom to a person.
Q 07When disturbed in its web, a black widow spider often drops to the ground and does what?
Plays dead
It plays dead: this timid spider lowers itself on a safety line and pretends to be lifeless rather than stand and fight.
Q 08After biting an insect and wrapping it up, how does a black widow spider actually eat its meal?
Drinks its liquefied body
The spider drinks its liquefied body. It pours digestive enzymes onto the insect, so digestion happens outside the spider, and then it sucks up the fluid.
Q 09A female black widow spider usually waits near the centre of her web in which position?
Upside down
Upside down is her normal pose: she hangs belly up and waits for an insect to blunder in, then rushes over to bite it and wrap it up.
Q 10Black widow spiderlings that run short of food soon after hatching are known to eat what?
Their own siblings
Their own siblings are on the menu. Of the hundreds of eggs in a sac, only about thirty spiderlings usually survive the first molt, and cannibalism is one of the main reasons.
Q 11Black widow spider venom causes cramps and sweating by acting mainly on which part of the body?
The nerves
The nerves are the target: the venom makes their endings release chemical messengers in a flood, which is why muscles lock into painful cramps.
Q 12Which medical term covers the muscle pain, vomiting and sweating of a black widow spider bite?
Latrodectism
Latrodectism takes its name from the widow spiders' scientific genus. Only a substantial dose of venom brings it on, and it usually clears up within three to six days.
Q 13How did professor Allan Blair prove in 1933 that black widow spider venom harms humans?
Let one bite him
Q 21New Zealand's katipō, a rare relative of the black widow spider, has a Māori name meaning what?
Night stinger
Night stinger joins the Māori words for 'to sting' and 'the night'. The species is in serious decline and has been fully protected by New Zealand law since 2010.
Q 22The red widow spider, a rare cousin of the black widow, lives only in which US state?
Florida
Florida is its only home: the red widow lives in the sand-pine scrub of the central and southern parts of the state, where it spins its web in palmetto bushes.
Q 23Brown widow spiders, newcomers this century, appear to be displacing black widows in which region?
Southern California
He let one bite him and kept notes for two hours, until he could write no more. He spent two days in hospital and dropped his plan to test a second bite.
Q 14Black widow spider antivenom comes from antibodies made by which animals injected with the venom?
Horses
Horses are injected with venom over a period of time, build up antibodies and are then bled so the antibodies can be purified. The horse proteins can set off allergic reactions in patients.
Q 15Along with local sweating, which skin reaction is a telltale sign of a black widow spider bite?
Goosebumps
Goosebumps and a patch of sweat near the bite are so typical that doctors treat them as evidence venom went in. There may be no redness or puncture marks at all.
Q 16The karakurt, Kazakhstan's Mediterranean black widow spider, is reported to kill which big animals?
Camels
Camels are among its reported victims. The species lives in steppes and grasslands, and it becomes a real problem for people where grain is still harvested by hand.
Q 17Black widow spiders belong to the comb-footed family, named for a row of bristles on which legs?
The hind pair
The hind pair carries a comb of strong, curved bristles, which the spider uses to fling silk over prey struggling in the web.
Q 18With very poor eyesight, black widow spiders mostly rely on what to find prey caught in their webs?
Vibrations
Vibrations travelling along the threads tell the spider what has landed and where. The same signals warn it of anything too large to tackle.
Q 19Black widow spiders are not aggressive, so most bites on people happen in which situation?
When pressed against skin
When pressed against skin, a trapped spider bites in self-defence, which is why gloves and boots left outdoors are classic places to get bitten. Given a way out, it flees.
Q 20Males of which Australian black widow spider relative somersault onto the female's mouthparts?
Redback
The redback male's somersault is thought to buy him a longer mating and so more fertilised eggs. An antivenom for the species' bite has been available since 1956.
Southern California is where the brown widow, which seems more hostile to its black cousin than the reverse, is taking over. Its bite is less toxic to people, so the change may be good news.
Q 24In southern Africa, black widows and their close relatives go by which common name?
Button spiders
Button spiders have a fearsome reputation, yet no death from a bite has been recorded in southern Africa for decades.
Q 25Which wasp, chief enemy of black widow spiders in western North America, feeds them to its young?
Blue mud dauber
The blue mud dauber often takes over another wasp's abandoned mud nest, clears out the spiders stored there and restocks it with freshly caught ones for its own egg.
Q 26Which West Coast reptile often eats western black widow spiders and shrugs off their venom?
Alligator lizard
The southern alligator lizard has shown immunity to the venom, which turns one of the continent's most feared spiders into a regular snack.
Q 27Black widow spiders are thought to have reached Hawaii partly as stowaways in shipments of what?
Imported produce
Imported produce is a known route into the islands, where three different widow species are now established. The same pathway is thought to spread widow spiders elsewhere.
Q 28The Mediterranean black widow spider may be the real biter behind the legend of which Italian dance?
Tarantella
The tarantella was danced for hours as a supposed cure for a spider's bite. Legend blamed a wolf spider from Taranto, but that species is not deadly, so the local widow may have been the culprit.
Q 29What name is given to the silk a courting male black widow spider drapes over the female?
Bridal veil
The bridal veil is a light layer of silk thrown over the female once the male has reached her. The courtship leading up to it can take anything from ten minutes to two hours.
Q 30Which American aircraft maker named its P-61 radar warplane the Black Widow after the spider?
Northrop
Northrop built the P-61 as the first American warplane designed from the outset to fight after sundown, with radar built into the airframe. Its YF-23 stealth prototype was later nicknamed Black Widow II.