• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Spanish
  • Adopt
  • Contact
  • Legally Register
  • Re-home Your Tortoise
  • Lost and Found
  • My Account

Tortoise Group

Tortoise Group

  • Home
  • Services
    • Hotline
    • Adoption Program
    • Registration Program
    • Register to Legally Adopt Pet Tortoise (RLAP)
    • Yard Consultation
    • Snooper Service
    • Report Lost / Found Tortoise
      • View Lost and Found
    • Re-home Your Tortoise
    • Meetings, Clinics and Workshops
      • Community Meetings
      • Microchipping Clinics
      • Sterilization Clinics
      • Master Workshops
  • Desert Tortoise Info
    • Adoption
      • Desert Tortoise Adoption
      • Register to Legally Adopt Pet Tortoise (RLAP)
    • Care
      • Burrows
      • Habitats
        • Water Pavilion for Tortoises
        • Gate Barrier
      • Food
      • Plants
        • Growing Dandelions from Seed
        • Transplanting Dandelions
        • Planting Prickly Pear Pads for Tortoises
        • Plants Poisonous to Tortoises
        • Hatchlings
          • Burrows for Hatchlings and Juveniles
      • Mating
      • Cold Weather
        • Brumation (Hibernation) When an Outdoor Burrow Is Not Available
      • Health and Illness
        • External Examination Checklist for Signs of Deficiencies, Disease, or Injury
        • Drowning In Tortoises
        • Life Cycle Of Desert Tortoises
        • Measuring Tortoise Size
        • Transporting Tortoises
        • Marking Your Tortoise
    • Veterinarians
    • Info Presentations
    • Desert Tortoise Laws
    • FAQ’s
      • Tortoises in the Classroom: Concerns and Alternatives
      • Salmonella Q & A
  • Publications
    • Care Sheets
    • Newsletters
    • Videos
    • Archive
  • Events
  • Shop
    • Merchandise
    • Food
  • Give
    • Donate
    • Volunteer Opportunities
      • Get Involved – Interest / Waiver
      • Volunteer Branches
  • Membership

Black Widow spiders in your tortoise burrows!

February 25, 2017 By admin

A wonderful place for the spiders to hang out and eat the cockroaches that also live there, feasting on tortoise scats commonly dropped right there.

Black widows are one of the common occupants of wild tortoise burrows. They are timid, and if you try to swat one you will see how very fast they retreat at the slightest vibration of the web. If you put your hand in a tortoise burrow, watch out for the spider that may be hanging near the roof. If given half a chance, it will escape instead of defending itself because you came too close.

Do not use poison in any form. There is no need and tortoises are very sensitive to such chemicals. Males are less than half the size of the females, have a smaller abdomen, are tan with light-banded legs and body and, like the females, hang upside down in their messy-looking webs. The hour glass-like figure on the underside of the abdomen is not bright red but is obvious. The males have venom but, like the females, seldom use it unless cornered or killing to eat.

Filed Under: Tortoise Tip

Primary Sidebar

Donate

Download RoADs App!

Collect data as a citizen scientist, download the ROaDS App today!

Get Involved

VOLUNTEER
JOIN
ADOPT

Tortoise

LOST
FOUND
RE-HOME

Follow Us!

CONTACT US

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Our Partners

Footer

  • About Us
  • Board Of Directors
  • Planned Giving
  • Press Kit
  • Privacy Policy

Tortoise Group is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that educates and advocates for the protection and well-being of the desert tortoise.

Copyright © 2023 Tortoise Group