I fed two out of my four tarantulas this evening. I find that as someone who is completely skeeved out by palmetto bugs (because they have spiky legs and weird things poking out of their rears AND the fact that whenever there is one near me, it flies or runs towards me instead of acting like the bug it is and running the other way! This is a well-known fact in my house. When the palmetto bugs get in, which thankfully is not that often, they will invariably get to the bathroom and in the middle of the night when I am in there, half asleep and without my glasses so I can't see them, I end up squealing so loud that it wakes up my husband because he thinks someone is messily murdering me in bed). Yuck. I now have the creepy-crawlies.
Where was I? Oh yes, feeding the spiders. Even though palmetto bugs frighten me, the crickets that I feed to the tarantulas do not. Okay, they do, but I've learned to tolerate them. In fact, last fall I even bred some crickets and the babies were so cute! [But aren't most baby things cute? Yeah. Except baby roaches. Gross.] But as the food source for happy, healthy spiders, crickets are okay in my book. Even with their spiky legs and weird things poking out of their rears.
I love the way the tarantulas pounce on the crickets. As pets that don't really do much except sit around looking like rocks, it's fun to watch them move quickly when they realize prey is nearby. Tarantulas are nicknamed "pet rocks" because it seems like they don't move for days. My spiders are in the family room where the dogs' beds are so I am constantly checking on them, and all but one move around quite a bit. It's especially fun to watch them climbing the walls of their enclosures. They move very deliberately and slowly.
I have one tarantula--it's my most venomous and one of the scarier, old world tarantulas--and he is affectionately known as a "pet hole." Spidey (imaginative, huh?) has a burrow and we never see him. He (I call him a he even though I'm not sure of his sex) has spun a lot of webbing in his tank and that's neat to see also. One night I was conscious enough to check on him after getting up in the middle of the night and sure enough, he was hanging out on one of the glass walls. That was the first time I'd seen him in months. He is a cobalt blue tarantula, scientific name Haplopelma lividum. Old world tarantulas are from Europe and Asia and are the most venomous spiders in the world for their size. Of course, everyone knows about the very toxic Black Widow and Brown Widow spiders. All tarantulas have venom--it's how they eat, by injecting their prey through their fangs with a neurotoxin that slowly pre-digests the insect so that the spider can just slurp up the good stuff. Yuck, huh? I find it fascinating! This is how all spiders eat, even tiny house spiders. You can just see the tarantulas' fangs because they're so big.
I have two Chilean rosehair tarantulas, scientific name Grammostola rosea. My smaller one, Rosie (again with the creative names!) has a lovely copper-sheened carapace (the main part of the body from which the legs stick out). Her hair almost looks metallic. Beautiful. I am reasonably sure she's a girl--the pet store had her labeled as such. My other Chilean rosehair is Ella, named for the old-fashioned dance, the Tarantella. From what I've read, the Tarantella was based on the St. Vitus-like dance that tarantula bite victims go through before they die. That's the romantic, and untrue, story. The real story is that it's a dance from the Apulio region in Italy (a region near the boot-heel) whose capital is Taranto.
My last spider is a Brazilian black, scientific name Grammostola pulchra. Despite his name, he is more dark brown than black, but in another couple molts, he'll get more jet-colored. G. pulchras are docile and can be handled; I have not tried with him because as a youngster, he is VERY quick and he has "attacked" the water dropper when I'm filling his water dish. He is what is termed a sling: a spiderling, a baby spider. He is about the width of a half-dollar. Again, I'm not sure of his real sex; it's easier to call him a him. This kind of tarantula takes a good five years at the very least to mature. His full-grown size will be up to 8 inches from leg to diagonal leg. G. pulchras are big tarantulas in the spider world. There are bigger ones--the Brazilian bird eater (Theraphosa blondii) can get up to 10 inches from leg to diagonal leg! For their huge size, T. blondiis are docile spiders. And no, they don't [regularly] eat birds!
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