Here's a story for you. Next time you fret about cattle trampling precious riparian areas, producing methane, killing the grasses that hold topsoil, you can think of this silver lining. <g>
Wednesday August 15 11:04 AM ET
Black Widow Spiders Terrorize City
PAVLODAR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - A plague of lethal black widow spiders is terrorizing the northern Kazakh city of Pavlodar, killing an 81-year old woman last week.
The woman, who was not named, died two weeks after being bitten by one of the spiders. The creatures caused near-panic after some were found living in a ventilation shaft in a residential block.
Local authorities have brought in 50 doses of vaccine to treat bite victims.
The black widows -- so called because the females kill and eat their mates immediately after mating -- were first reported in former Soviet Kazakhstan in 1983, local entomologist Oleg Lyakhov said.
The huge spiders, which can grow up to three inches long, were not seen again until the drought-ridden years of 1998 and 1999, when the Central Asian state was also devastated by plagues of locusts.
One reason given by experts for their reappearance in large numbers is a decline in livestock numbers. Cattle are highly effective at trampling their cocoons and killing the spiders before they emerge into the light of day.
Black widows favor cool, shady, stony spots -- and it now appears that apartment blocks will do -- to weave up to 10 cocoons, each containing as many as 600 eggs.
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