The Black Widow

Is there any name for a spider, or any animal's name for that matter, more frightening than the Black Widow? And, what's more, is there anything more frightening than one landing on your arm? From experience, I can tell you, no, there really isn't much more frightening than that.

While hiking in Pingxi on Monday, making my way up to the Temple housing the Kwan Yin Dripping Water Cave, I made my way through truly jungled terrain equipped with terrifying creepy crawlies. As I passed countless bushes and trees, I could feel invisible strands of spider webs brushing across my face and arms. But with the sweat and humidity dripping down my face, the cobwebs didn't really seem to phase me. And to be quite honest, I am used to this from my countless hikes in the Northeast United States with harmless spiders.

However, somewhere mingled with all that sweat and intensity, I could feel the light pitter patter of eight little feet crawling up my forearm. I looked down and saw the most monstrous little spider I have ever seen in my life.

This spider was jet black and had an enormous abdomen twice the size of its head. It was no larger than the knuckle of my ring finger, but the dark, ominous color sent my hairs on edge. Without thinking, but after getting a good solid look at this harbinger of doom, I took the guide book in my right hand and brushed the eight legged arachnid to the ground. I watched him fly off and caught a glimpse of the tell-tale red hour glass on the underside of his abdomen. I thought to myself about what a freaky spider that was and then continued on, giving no second thought.

No second thought, that is, until I thought, what if there are more spiders? I then did that dance, you know which one, where you start freaking out and shake every part of your body just in case there are other spiders, scorpions, or venomous snakes lurking about in the far reaches of your body. I mean I rustled my hair, jumped up and down, waved my hands in the air, and almost reached the point of stripping naked fearing one had passed by unnoticed up into my shorts.

Fortunately, at the height of my lunacy, I calmed back down and came to the conclusion that there were no more spiders on me. I continued up the trail, to the temple, and the spider didn't enter into my train of thought until one lonely night at the computer, several evenings later.

As I was doing some aimless Google searches, the image of that black spider popped up in the foreground of my mind again. I typed into the Google search engine "poisonous spiders Taiwan" and came across a great study of the different spiders all around Taiwan. I was relieved to discover that the majority of spiders are in fact not poisonous in Taiwan. However, one that we ought to watch out for, the study mentioned, was the Black Widow.

Black Widow.

Black.

Black Spider.

Oh, dear God...

I shot out of my chair again and gave a hearty encore of the absurd dance I did back in the jungle that day. Once I gained my composure, I did a Google image search of a black spider and sure enough, glowing on my computer screen was and exact image of the same spider I saw looming on my arm- dark as night back, red hourglass abdomen. Now, I am no spider expert, but I know I had a very close encounter with a Black Widow Spider that strange and scary afternoon.

Fortunately, I was not bitten by the widow maker, I mean, Black Widow. And I know, that spiders have received undue negative images all throughout the world. Even the the Black Widow is misunderstood. The venom of a bite from a Black Widow is rarely enough to kill a fully grown human, (although it is more than likely fatal for children). More often than not, the Black Widow will scamper away more terrified of us than we are of them. And yet, while I know all of this to be true, the experience nevertheless gave me one massive case of the heebie geebies.

I think it's safe to say that my incident at Silver Stream Cave and now my Black Widow attack at Pingxi will seriously force me into considering bringing along a hiking partner for my next Taiwanese adventure.

From your Black Widow hun..... gaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh... Michael.

Photo courtesy of National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com