Orkin Exterminator & Termite Control

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 Spider Facts

Black Widow Spiders' Activity During Cold Weather

How the Black Widow Spider Received its Name

Extinction of Black Widow Spiders

Black Widow Spider Web

Characteristics of a Black Widow Spider

Black Widow Spider Map