When the subject of dangerous spiders comes up, the average person usually thinks about the black widow spider. Their shiny black body with a prominent red hourglass marking on the underside of the abdomen is an image that readily comes to mind. There are three other venomous widow spiders (Southern black widow, northern black widow, and, the red widow) in addition to the brown widow. The most commonly encountered species of the group that people are finding around their homes and work place in Sarasota County is the brown widow spider, Latrodectus geometricus. In the mid to late nineties there seems to have been an outbreak of brown widow spiders.