What You Should FEAR About the Red Widow

The red widow is one of the United States' rarest spiders, but also one of the most feared. It's said that their potent venom can leave you with chronic pain for the rest of your life, but there is something else about them that is much scarier - and it has nothing to do with their bite. This spider is at the center of a far bigger story about the race to save our public lands before they're lost, so we're setting out to document this seldom seen widow and show you what you should really fear.

Our public lands here in the US and the natural ecosystems that they protect are the most important resources that we have, and they belong to every single one of us. Now, we need to fight to keep it that way. The red widow's home is under attack, and what we should all fear is the fact that in our lifetime we could lose them and the scrub forever. The truth is, nothing we do as humans would be possible without the services these habitats provide or the animals like the red widow that keep them running, but we have the power to protect them, and these resources will take you to the people leading the way to do it.

-- To advocate when the government has public comment periods about proposed projects: https://www.regulations.gov/
-- Learn about the irreplaceable Florida scrub and support active scrub research and protection with Archbold Station: https://www.archbold-station.org/
-- Support global conservation projects and ecosystem restoration with The Nature Conservancy: https://www.nature.org/en-us/

Simply put, this mission would never have happened without Mikie ‪@CoolCrittersYT‬ and Spencer ‪@MyWildBackyard‬. These guys are two of the internet's most passionate red widow advocates, and it has truly been a privilege to learn about and document the Florida scrub alongside them. Mikie has spent years studying red widows and scrub invertebrates and Spencer's landmark videos put red widows on the YouTube map, so if you want to learn more go check out their channels and subscribe!

All video footage on this channel is filmed in the field, by us unless otherwise credited. Additional still images are courtesy of Fair Use or Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.... We can't thank the artists enough for their generosity in sharing their work, they're listed here in order of appearance: Eric Gaba and Ebyabe.

Music:
Song: Kevin MacLeod - Journey to Ascend
(   • Journey to Ascend  )
Song: Kevin MacLeod - Double Drift
(   • Double Drift  )
Additional songs, footage, and animations are fully licensed from Envato Elements. No AI images, video, or audio are ever used on this channel.

Please do not attempt to reenact or recreate any events or scenes from our videos. All animal interactions on this channel are performed by wildlife professionals, and we routinely receive assistance from local wildlife experts and guides during production. All necessary medical precautions were taken to ensure the safety of the hosts and crew. All animals featured are wild and are always released immediately after filming. No animals were harmed, removed from the wild, injured, or killed in the production of this video.

Welcome to The Wildlife Brothers channel! We are Harrison and Evan Black, passionate zoologists and conservationists, and it is our ambition to educate and inspire people to conserve our world's wildlife! It has always been our dream to get people excited about wildlife, from the local animals in your backyard to the endangered species in dire need of our help.

By bringing our passion, knowledge, and skills onto a global platform we hope to introduce you to the wildlife we love, and start a conversation that will help make a difference in protecting the natural world. The time to act is now, so join us as we explore our world's ecosystems and encounter the incredible species that call them home! We're glad to have you with us, so let's get going!