1. a tropical "brown widow" spider, new to the los angeles area, has been captured (捕获)as part of the natural history museum of los angeles county’s ongoing spider survey. this spider has not been found before in the los angeles area. "the brown widow probably originated in africa, but has been introduced into the tropics almost worldwide," brown said. according to him, one of the many ways the spider could have made it to the southland was through imports of plants, flowers, food or furniture. it was a 4th-grade student from van deene elementary school, while on a honda earth odyssey program field trip run by the museum, who discovered the spider. the program is designed to introduce elementary school children to biodiversity and build environmental awareness. the children had been introduced about spiders before the field trip onto the school grounds. the student recognized the spider as being of particular interest and pointed it out to beth nordeen, a museum educator. "the spider was inside a rolled-up leaf of a plant on the school grounds," nordeen said. "it was in a web along with an egg sac(液囊)." using a stick, she tugged（拖、拽） on the web, until she was able to place the spider and its egg sac into a plastic bottle with a cap. nordeen added that you never want to handle any spider with your bare hands. there are about 30 described widow species including black widows, red widows, and the brown widows - the black widow being the most common of the widow family in the los angeles area. a brown widow spider can grow to one-and-a-half inches long. it has an orange-to-yellow hourglass design on its underside, as opposed to the familiar red hourglass design on the black widow. title: los angeles area gets a 1. spider
