Posted on 06/30/2019 2:04:43 AM PDT by Windflier
Giant Tarantulas Are Invading Texas By The Thousands This Summer
Everything is bigger in Texas – even the bugs. While it’s no secret that summer brings lots of critters out of the woodwork here in the hot, humid Lone Star State, the eight-legged variety will be especially populous. It’s mating season for the Texas Brown Tarantula, a large arachnid that lays up to 1,000 eggs at a time. C’mon, we know you want to see:
Over 1200 different species of tarantula can be found all across earth's Southern Hemisphere. Named after the Southern Italian town of Taranto, the somewhat ambiguous term describes any large, unfamiliar ground-dwelling spider.
Everything is bigger in Texas - including the spiders. The Texas Brown Tarantula is one of the largest varieties, with adults weighing up to three ounces and boasting leg spans of over four inches.
This summer, the tarantulas will be most highly concentrated in North Texas. While nothing to worry about health and safety wise, keeping your eyes peeled during outdoor adventures might keep any unpleasant surprises at bay!
Gordon Ramsay tried it so you wouldn’t have to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z_UndhO2ME
We lived in the Tarantula migratory path when I lived in San Jose, CA. I always carried a peanut butter jar in my car to scoop one up if he was on the road. I would put it on my desk at work. People always wanted to take them home to their kids. OK with me.
“You should see what happens when I walk face first into a spider web, it’s a YouTube moment!”
When I was a kid on the Gulf coast I caught Spinybacked Orbweaver spiders in the woods because I thought they looked cool and let them go around the house. They make industrial grade webs between the trees and my mom liked to work in the yard and was constantly walking into the webs.
My mom that is quite melodramatic. Oddly enough, she still loves me...
As for tarantulas, I have caught countless numbers of them and handled every one and have yet to be bitten.
Boy that is the Gods honest truth. We used to have this old adobe line camp where we ran steers between Laredo and El Indio. You kept your valuables and clothes wrapped and tied in a plastic garbage bag. Boots were place on pegs upside down. I cannot count the times that I had to chunk these critters out of my bunk at night.
I may be mistaken but these things migrate. We were out one afternoon and thousands upon thousands of them came marching by. They were everywhere as thick as grass. They interrupted the dung beetles that rolled their priced balls under the porch every afternoon. Yep, collision of spider and turd rustlers.
That and scorpions. The place was loaded with them.
They should never be handled. They have barbed hairs that they throw off as a defense measure. When these hairs make their way into your eye, they can cause a severe and painful keratitis. It will require surgery to remove the barb and affected tissue. In the worst case, the eye will require a corneal graft to remove the source of pain and poor vision. Some dangerous caterpillars also throw off barbed hairs.
I remember playing with them at Leonard Scout Ranch every summer.
Used to do that with cane spiders in Maui. They are pretty big also with leg spans at 4”, but the body only about the size of a thumb. You find them on the wall often just hanging around...
And they are fast movers! In order to get the bowl over them you have to move very slowly or in a blink they are gone!
Are they laying anchor spiderlings once they arrive in Texas? Or, are the swimming the river with borrowed kids on their backs...
Bernie Sanders will announce today that they are entitled to American citizenship and free nationalized health care "on humanitarian grounds".
Leni
California? Hopefully nobody told the state about it. They would've bulldozed your neighborhood and put up tarantula crossing signs.
Bkmrk
“”I have caught countless numbers of them and handled every one and have yet to be bitten.””
I’d rather kiss a rattler on the nose, and I’ve done that many times for the shows. Kiss of death was it’s name. Spent 11 months in Vietnam, and several years with the Sheriff’s Department, the rest has been on the ranch and in the oil fields of West Texas and I still can’t get over that Spider Thing! At least I don’t have to call my wife to come kill it, I am capable of that.
Spent allot of time in the El Indio area, friend has a ranch south of there that borders the Rio Grande. I go down once a year and shoot some hog hunting and predator hunting footage for the show. He’s got a damn nice house and still has to battle the crawly critters.
Must be Global Warming or Climate Change.
Or something.
Oh, great. Something else for the kitties to bring and proudly deposit at my feet.
Used to be that way about red or brown wasps and yellow jackets. When I quit smoking, I seemed to not react as jittery when confronted by them and over the years they just don’t annoy me as much.
At least the plague of stinkbugs from a few years ago is gone. So apparently this year its tarantulas. Lol.
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