Black Widow Spiders Food
Like most spiders, the food source of the black widow spider includes a variety of arthropods, including ants, caterpillars, grasshoppers, beetles, cockroaches and scorpions, among others. Black widows may also consume bees, baby spiders, bugs, butterflies, and crickets.
Black widows process their food outside of their bodies. After prey is caught in the web, it is injected with venom and masticated by the spider's cheliceral teeth. Black widows then inject their prey with digestive enzymes and consume prey after it has softened and liquefied. Following feeding, the length of the spider's body elongates as its stomach increases. The black widow stomach performs a sucking action to allow for entry of prey into the body.
Like most spiders, the black widow is capable of living for several months without food. Food remnants are stored in fingerlike cavities known as caecea. Some specimens have been known to survive more than one year in the absence of prey.
Poisonous Spiders and Black Widow Spiders
Black Widow Spiders' Activity During Cold Weather
How the Black Widow Spider Received its Name
Extinction of Black Widow Spiders
Characteristics of a Black Widow Spider