Tarantulas
Why A Tarantula?
Believe it or not, they provide company They're also very interesting to watch and study. I wouldn't say that they are company in a conventional sense, but they are certainly interesting. They don't have very well developed personalities of course, but they are all individuals, even two spiders of the same species can be distinct in their individual behavior.
Interesting to note, spiders are measured from the tip of the front leg on one side to the tip of the rear leg on the other side. Tarantulas come in many sizes. Some are only a few of inches across. One species, the Pseudotheraphosa apophysis has actually achieved a leg span of over 13 inches !
Activities
Spiders spend a lot of their time just sitting in their nests doing nothing. They do actually do a lot more than you would think though. The secret is that spiders are predominantly nocturnal, meaning that unless you want to stay up very late at night, you most likely will miss seeing most of their activities. They aren't completely idle during the daytime though although they usually begin their activities at night. The four main activities that do are eating, growing, building nests and mating.
Food Tarantulas eat insects, mainly. They digest their food externally. They will usually eat only live food. Some of them will accept dead prey and a few of the larger spiders will even eat small pieces of raw meat! After they catch and kill their prey tarantulas will inject it with strong digestive enzymes that will liquefy the insect's contents. After the insides have been liquified, the tarantula then sucks the insect dry and discards the empty husk. |
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Are They Dangerous?
No, not
really. They only appear rather formidable, mainly when they rear up in their
classic threat posture. They are venomous however, although not poisonous. It
is confusing but he words mean different things. In fact, every spider is venomous
except two species, including the ones that turn up in your tub from time to time,
but just a very few types of spider are danger to humans (one is the
"funnel-web" and the other "black widow" ) neither of which should
ever be kept as pets!.
Some Tarantulas can be more dangerous than others. The New
World species, for example, those from the Americas, rely more on urticating hairs (the
hairs that cause death when someone is bitten by a pet tarantula. That having
been said, a big tarantula (e.g., one with a 6" leg span) has the potential of giving
you a very painful wound, similar to a bee or wasp sting, but they normally don't attack
unless they are provoked (although many tarantulas are unpredictable, so you don't assume
anything). In other words, you're more likely to be scratched by your cat or bitten by
your dog, and many more people die after being bitten by snakes than by spiders.
Venomous and Poisonous
Venomous - The definition is something that can cause illness or death by injecting
a toxin.
Poisonous - poisonous means having a substance that through its chemical action
usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism
Which means that tarantulas, cobras and wasps are venomous
and puffer fish, amanita mushrooms and cyanide are poisonous. Naturally. if you eat a
venomous animal and take in the toxin it may poison you.
Handling A Tarantula
If you are handling a spider you need to know know what you are doing. Not so much because it could be dangerous to you, although it could be, but more so because you could actually end up killing the tarantula! by accident! For example, your spider may panic and scamper off of your hand and fall to the floor. If a spider should fall very far it could rupture its delicate abdomen, which is more often than not a fatal injury. Even experienced arachnologists have lost their spiders in this way. There are many tarantulas that are considered to be safe to handle and there are others that you should never handle because they will either bite or "hair-kick" at the littlest provocation. If you are in doubt at all, please don't handle your tarantula!
Moving Your Tarantula
It will be
necessary to to move your tarantula every once in a while to re-house it or clean
its tank. Try this approach:
Get a plastic bottle (like a 2 liter soda bottle). Square plastic bottles are even better,
because they will go right up against the side of the tank, a few types of mineral water
bottles are rather square.
Cut the bottom off and be sure to make the cut level and smooth. (Many square
bottles have very useful "grooves" all around them, which make them easier to
cut nice and straight.)
Now make a small hole in the screw-cap that is smaller than the tarantula that you want to
move so he can't escape!
Now place the bottle right over the spider in his tank,
making very sure that he cannot escape from the bottle! Some pieces of old cardboard
will come in useful at this point.
Coax the spider up into the bottle, which is usually very easy because most spiders will
run up when disturbed, even the ground-dwellers. You can use a chopstick, or something
like this to gently steer the spider upward by touching the end of his tummy.
When he is safely inside the bottle, place something flat over the open bottom end. The tarantula should be
perfectly fine in the bottle while you clean out his tank or finish setting up of a new
one.
Now put this bottle into the new container (or the old one if you were just cleaning it
out) and remove whatever you used to cover the opening.
Blow gently through the small hole in the screw-cap and your spider should now move down
into the tank. If he doesn't do so, don't blow any harder. Instead, remove the
screw-cap (watching the tarantula to make sure it doesn't try to get out) and use a
chop-stick or something similar to gently "persuade" the spider to now climb
down into the tank.
This method really does work well!
Best of luck with your new Tarantula!
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