As for the most poisonous of all spiders-the black widow-Taiwan has only one species of the same genus: the redback spider (Lactrodectus hasselti). Because redbacks live in areas rarely visited by humans, to date there have only been occasional reported sightings. Chen Shyh-hwang, who has been researching spiders for over ten years, has only seen one, at Mt. Chiuchiu in Nantou County.
至於蜘蛛族群中毒性最強的黑寡婦，台灣僅有一種與其同屬的「赤背寡婦蛛」，族群分布在人煙稀少的淺山地區，目前僅有零星紀錄，研究蜘蛛十幾年的陳世煌也僅在南投縣九九峰見過一回。