Red-kneed tarantula
Posted on 10/19/2011 11:03:01 AM PDT by yorkie
GENEVA — Swiss customs officials say they intercepted a man at Zurich airport carrying hundreds of endangered spiders in his luggage.
Customs officials found 261 Mexican red-kneed tarantulas packed into individual plastic bags inside six boxes belonging to a Swiss man arriving from the Dominican Republic in August.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
And yet ANOTHER reason why I no longer fly.
The Swiss have a very odd taste in pets?
Or do they set them to fighting each other, and place bets? Now, what? Do they fly these "endangered species" back home where they can start killing people?
God, thats disgusting. Feel sorry for the spiders. Hope they don’t get punished, like killed.
“72 giant flesh-eating centipedes” - This guy knows how to throw a party.
Mexican redlegs (or knees as per the article) are hardly “endangered”. They are extremely common spiders, and favored by spider enthusiasts for their mild temperment and tolerance to being handled.
Were they all yelling “Allahu Akbar”? (72?)
He wuz gonna sell them on his Website.
I remember being in the chow line at the Fieldhouse of my college(under construction at that time) and the guy ahead of me had a tarantula climbing up and down his arm, around his raincoat collar. It took everything I had not to scream and run...
Samuel L. Jackson, your agent is on line one, wants to talk to you about a sequel...
Maxwell Smart crushes Tarantula with jar of Horseradish.
Prince Rupert: “What is that awful smell?”
Max: “That’s just Horseradish your highness.”
Prince Rupert: “That’s odd. It smells just like tarantula.”
AT, tarantulas are scarey looking, but quite timid and gentle natured.
A couple years ago, I would sit on my porch after dark, and whistle, and then call, “Harry?”
Within a minute or two, a tarantula would come up to the step of the porch, and stand there for a couple minutes, looking at me, and then, turn and slowly walk away.
This happened every night in the summer, for nearly two years. He stopped his ‘visits’ - and I often wonder where he might be.
Why would anybody want to smuggle tarantulas? There can’t be that big a market for them away from here, there’s barely a market for them here.
AT, tarantulas are scarey looking, but quite timid and gentle natured.
The species was CITES-listed in the mid-1980s and it's illegal to collect them in the wild. The ones you see in stores today are bred in captivity.
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