Poecilodrama

Those of you who know me know that I really like bugs, and in particular, I really like arachnids.  I have what some people would consider a sizable collection of tarantulas (but yet what most hobbyists would consider a totally dinky collection of tarantulas).  Up until recently, I didn't have enough confidence to trust myself to work with what we call "Old World" tarantulas.  Although no one on record has ever died from a tarantula bite, those from the Old World, aka anywhere that isn't part of the American continents, pack a bit more of a punch than those from our New World.  Being a working mother, I knew I couldn't afford to be laid up for three to five days vomiting, pooping, sweating, and being generally whiny and pathetic due to a spider bite, so I decided to wait until I was absolutely ready before delving into the dark side of arachnophilia.

But when I finally realized that I had enough experience under my belt, I also realized that I really wanted one of these:

(photo courtesy of bighairyspiders.com)

What we pretentious asshat Latin speaking folk call a Poecilotheria rufilata, and what you way less awesome laymen would call a "Red Slate Ornamental."  (Don't ask me why, because they are clearly not even a little bit red.  This is why we speak Latin, people.)

Because A.) They're green.  B.) They're perdy.  And C.) They're green!

Before I continue, I feel I have to point out to you non-tarantula-keeping vast majority of the population the fact that just because a spider is from the Old World and has a potent bite, it does not mean this makes them more likely to bite.  I did more research than could fit in my mushy little brain before I spent money on something that could seriously injure me, and Poecis aren't the type of tarantula that want to eat your face off.  They are shy, prefer to run and hide, and bite reports from them are rather rare unless you're one of those people with something to prove by having to post pictures all over the internet of your perfectly tame venom-mobile chillin' on your hand.

That said, it really didn't make me any less nervous.  God gave them more than just knock-your-socks-off biting ability.  S/he gave them an even more heart pounding attribute: the ability to teleport.  And if there's anything more scary than the downtime I'd experience taking a bite from a spooked Poeci, its the idea of having to chase one moving at warp speed all over the house with a deli cup before my non-tarantula-loving counterpart got home from work.

Here are some step by step instructions for how to bite off more than you can chew, and learn to adapt to the circumstance.

Step one: Get drunk and order a Poecilotheria rufilata.

Step two: Receive said spider in the mail, and proceed to unpack it and house it into an incredibly awesome beautiful realistic looking enclosure where you am certain it will forget the plastic walls and believe itself to be back in India where her people hail from.  (What I really mean by this is, put packing materials into the enclosure after chewing off all of my nails, while an amused friend sits in the bathroom with me on top of the toilet waiting to laugh at my first dumbass mistake.)

Step three:  A day later, feed the beast!  (This was so cool, watching her chase a cricket all over the place.)

Step four:  Discover the bolus of said cricket hanging out on the side of the enclosure, and judging by the size of it and the body language of your pet, realize that she really, really wants it out of there.  (A bolus, by the way, is like the sandwich-crust of tarantula lunchtime.  And over time, if you leave it laying around your house, it will rot and attract gross things, like mites.)

Step five:  Lock your bathroom down like Fort Knox.  Get 10 inch tweezers.  Open container and proceed to try to extract bolus.

Step six:  Fail miserably.  Your spider has actually wedged the bolus between a thick piece of cork bark and the curves of the plastic container, in a location so tight, even your tweezers can't open once you get them in there.  Meanwhile, the spider you were so nervous about sits patiently still and watches you suck at life.  Eventually the bolus gets pushed down more and more until its buried in the substrate.

Step seven:  Curse a little, and then decide your spider looks hungry.

Step eight:  Roaches are delicious.  So you get a perfectly sized roach in your tweezers and drop it right next to your lean, mean, green machine, who gets so excited about food that she turns around and stands on it.  Meanwhile, your roach will play dead just long enough for your tarantula to forget what it was doing and let its guard down so the damn thing can burrow to the bottom of the dirt, never to be seen again.

Step nine:  Get the brilliant idea to flood the roach out.  Your spider likes humidity anyway, and at that size has no water dish.  What'll it hurt to wet the substrate, right?  You're a genius.  Flood the substrate, and Voila!  Congratulations, you have created a swamp with a rotting cricket bolus and likely a drowned roach.  You're considering just redoing the entire enclosure, but remember the fact that you're working with a teleporting ouch-factory.

Step ten: Say fuck it and order some isopods.

****

Go ahead, its okay to laugh at me.  After this experience, though, I am far less nervous about working with this particular spider.  He or she was wonderful throughout the entire ordeal, sitting in mostly one place as calm as could be, while probably laughing her little spider butt off at how badly I suck.  She was perfectly cooperative, and gave me nothing to be afraid of.

Before I conclude this episode of failure, I don't want to leave you with a negative view of this wonderful hobby and the people and animals in it, just because I was a tiny bit afraid of a little one inch Poeci.  (Did I mention she's only one inch?  Shut up, peanut gallery.)  The vast majority of tarantulas, and arachnids in general including true spiders (of the order Araneae), scorpions, solfugae, and anything else classified therein - are far more afraid of you than you could ever be of them.  Many are gentle and docile and don't seem to mind, perhaps even enjoy, being held.  Others are shy and flighty, and would far prefer to run into the sanctity of their burrow than ever lay a fang on you.  While all spiders and scorpions posess venom, very few are actually deadly to humans.  The venom is mostly there for the ability to incapacitate their prey.  There are of course the occasional exceptions to this rule, but as long as you take the proper precautions for your situation, they are truly not an animal you have to worry about at any point in your life.

To prove that there are indeed big hairy spiders that have no issues living peacefully side by side with us bigger scary humans, here are a few pictures of some of mine, fully tolerating my love for them.