Flora and Fauna

Don't Pet the Tarantulas

By Abigail Lovett

That’s what my friend Marcial, a pesticide salesman at Clayton Pesticides behind the market, says as he explains how the tarantulas in Zihuatanejo are different than the ones commonly sold as pets. I have to take his word for it because most of my first hand experience with tarantulas has been from a distance, post-mortum, or from what I’ve read on the Internet.

The root of the word tarantula, despite a lack of deadly spiders in Europe, is the folk cure for a wolf spider’s bite in the Italian town of Tarantola; the Tarantella is a crazy jig danced in the belief that you can sweat out the poison from a spiders’ bite. The nocturnal Mexican Red Kneed Tarantula, the one most common to the coastal deserts here in Zihuatanejo, is quite popular in the movies possibly because its hairy ten inch red-kneed leg span and three to five-and-a-half inch black or dark brown body show up well in the camera lens and its docile nature makes it easy to work with. Although the movies are counting on our innate fear of tarantulas, a fear that seems more prominent among those of European decent, I try to curb my innate arachnophobic reaction by putting myself in their shoes: I imagine the spider thinking to itself, “Oh, my God! Look at that huge, pink, hairless thing!”

Perhaps that’s not a bad way to think because tarantulas have several good defense mechanisms. First and foremost they are alarmingly good jumpers, luckily they do so mostly to get away from whatever is bothering them. If they are too close when threatened they can have a fairly painful bite; which can tear the skin. These are just the obvious defenses. Some tarantulas, like the Mexican Red Kneed Tarantula, can defend themselves by flicking what are called urticating hairs from their abdomens and back legs. These hairs are quite caustic and can end up in the eye, nose, and/or lungs of hapless humans, or pets who attempt to look too closely at these tarantulas. A mistake that could result, at the worst, in blindness or the necessity for an eye operation and, at the least, a burning and itching on the skin and mucus membranes. Be wary of those hairs if you come across a molted skin or find a dead tarantula, they can rub off easily.

Tarantulas start to breed at two-years-old. The female is larger than the male, and has a 25 year life span compared to the male who has a seven year life span – that is if he can manage to escape the female who is quite likely to eat him after mating. This is probably because spiderlings don’t need much parenting. After the rainy season, the female lays from 400 to 1000 eggs in a silk cocoon in her silk lined burrow in arid ground or dry bark. She then spends the next six to eight weeks rolling the egg sac in and out of the burrow so it can get some warmth from the sun during the day. When it’s time the female helps the spiderlings by chewing a hole in the egg sac. The spiderlings are out on their own in another two to three weeks.

A thousand baby tarantulas may sound duanting but they have loads of obstcles to face before they reach adulthood. Tarantulas have many predators such as spider-eating-birds, lizards, snakes, and some species of wasps. As a matter of fact the Mexican Red Kneed Tarantula is on the endangered species list because of . . . you guessed it: Man. Property development and tarantula trafficking are mentioned as main culprits but I would bet highway traffic fatalities also contribute to the decimation of the species; not to mention frantic midnight whacking or insecticide spraying: a common human defense mechanism.

A tarantula who escapes humans or other predators but loses a leg can grow it back in seven years, a good thing because tarantulas depend on their leg hairs to help them feel their way around. Although they look wary and alert the eight eyes on their heads, which can see front and back, are about as useful as human noses. Tarantulas smell and taste through palps on the end of their legs, which is one of the reasons they seem to shift around all the time. If you take the time to look closely at a tarantula it seems to have ten legs, but only eight of those are for walking and they have claws on the end of their legs to help them climb trees. Like other spiders, a tarantula holds on to its prey with its two front legs that act more like arms while it injects venom from its hollow fangs to dissolve its meal, from the inside out.

This movie star tarantula has become my new best friend upon learning that scorpions are a part of their diet, as well as millipedes and other spiders, and insects, which I hope includes flies and mosquitos; I try not to think of the small birds and frogs they are said to eat too. For all the fuss made over tarantulas here in Mexico, unless you live in or on the border of the jungle, you just don’t see them that often. I can honestly say that with all our travels throughout the country I can probably count on both hands how many I’ve actually seen dead or alive in 22 years. So if you have the opportunity to see one while on vacation try to overcome your arachnophobia long enough to take in this remarkable creature.

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