Posted on 05/22/2005 7:17:50 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
HARLINGEN, May 22, 2005 — As the sun sets on the Rio Grande Valley, car headlights splash shadows that crawl like black hands across the road.
When spring blooms in South Texas, it’s mating season for tarantulas.
From his front door, Bryant Williams sees the fat, furry spiders creep into the night.
“I see them mostly late at night, like around midnight under the street light, scurrying around,” said Williams, a U.S. Border Patrol agent who lives near the Arroyo Colorado, a nesting ground for the native Texas tan tarantula.
“A lot of people don’t like them because they look scary,” he said. “But they don’t bother me. I grew up in South Texas. We used to play with them as kids — catch them and keep them in aquariums. You’d keep them two or three days and turn them loose if you got a bigger one. Like a goldfish, we’d look at them and see what they do.”
In South Texas, mating season lures the Texas tan tarantula out of its winter burrow for about six weeks, said Genaro Lopez, an entomologist at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
“The males and females will come out of their tunnels and they’ll look for each other,” he said.
About eight years ago, Jacob Taylor’s grandmother gave him a tarantula that she captured in her garage.
Ever since, he’s kept tarantulas as pets.
“It took a little time to get used to the idea of handling them — you hope they don’t bite you,” said Taylor, 20, a computer science major who works at a Brownsville pet store. “Everybody’s afraid of them. It’s something that’s interesting — that people are afraid of them, but you don’t have to be.”
Like many tarantula species, the Texas tan spider is “docile,” Lopez said.
“When people try to mess with them, they’ll try to bite as a last resort,” he said.
While its fangs can leave “a little puncture wound,” the tarantula’s bite packs as much venom as a honeybee’s sting, he said.
Still, the 4-inch tarantula preys on man’s primal fears, Lopez said.
“It’s an arachnophobic type of stereotype,” he said of the spider’s mystique. “Instead of seeing them as creations with intrinsic beauty, tarantulas are taking it on the chin, with people driving over them or spraying them.”
When Brownsville’s resacas crawl with the spiders during mating season, about one in 10 of his customers in the area want him to kill tarantulas, said Sergio Cordova, field supervisor with Esparza Pest Control in Edinburg.
“Around this time, it’s the worst,” he said. “They climb up the walls and get into cracks or vents. Some people will see one and think they’re everywhere — and most of the time they’re right. Anybody who lives near the arroyo or a resaca — be prepared.”
While the tarantula strikes its share of terror, Lopez sees its beauty.
“I love them,” he said. “They’re part of creation. What would you rather have in your house — roaches or a tarantula?”
If there isn't, this is where I get mine: http://www.insectlore.com
Excellent site for kids projects!
Yup, that is what is in my head now.
SwinneySwitch, you better ping me to a butterfly thread or something!
Heh-heh! Clint Eastwood's fourth acting job: napalming a 500-foot spider from the seat of a fighter jet.
SWEEET! Saving to favs. Thanks.
If you have kids, we ordered the butterfly pavillion from there and painted ladies every season.
We hang the pavillion in the middle of the living room. When the butterflies morph it is such a sight! ::until we have to let them go :( ::
We have not been successful in getting them to lay eggs in the pavillion yet. So we let them go before their life span is up. Painteds only live 2 weeks.
Question: How many known human deaths have been attributed to tarantulas (according to "Animal Planet")?
We have a insect "Zoo" called The Butterfly Pavillion about 5 miles from our home. They're still trying to get me to hold a tarantula there. No chance!
Butterfly Pavillions are about just as relaxing as fish tanks.
Way back in the 70s I lived in a dumpy old farm house. I came home one night with my 2 small children and there were 5 tarantulas in my bedroom. I grabbed my shoe rack and we stood on my bed and I threw shoes until I killed them all. I wouldn't kill them today. They're really pretty nice for spiders. I have a lot of them that live in my yard they usually only come out after a rain.
I'm not thrilled with snakes either. But the fear is not as irrational as it is with spiders.
When we moved to North Carolina, I was cleaning out the backyard.
When I got to ground level and below of this rock pit I was wheelbarrelling rocks from, I found it was a snake pit.
I just grabbed my BBQ tongs and started collecting snakes into multiple rubbermaid boxes. Didn't even think about it.
As we went hiking and fishing, we brought a box to release.
Whereas with spiders ::monsters!::, I say kill them.
Now, if a snake happens into my house....the fish gutten knives will emerge.
When I was little, I was out walking and a honeybee just came up and stung me on my hand. I didn't do anything to threaten it as far as I know (maybe it landed on my hand, I didn't know it, and I moved my hand around a lot or something). But, it attacked me anyway.
Your a good girl for what you did with the snakes but spiders are our friends too. Now skunks are a different matter.
Well! I have a skunk story too!
Will that be off topic?
Chills going up and down my body. Hair standing on end.
I prefer tarantulas. Kill one and it's gone. With roaches...............well they kinda have a very large extended family.
Everybody that lives in the country has a least one good skunk story. Here at FReepers threads go anywhere you want them to.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.