Tarantulas!

I’ve somewhat recently taken a major interest in tarantulas, and I’m planning on buying one soon.

Anyhoo, out of curiosity, any owners here? If so, what kind(s)?

It’s funny that I cam across this thread…I was just thinking about whether or not to get a pet, and if so, what sort of pet. A tarantula was one of the ideas I had :content:

Haha, a sign? :razz:

You might like www.tarantulas.us then. They have a great forum with TONS of information and a community just as friendly as the one here.

Thats kool, i hear tarantulas are, against a common misconception goes. Very Friendly.

But they’re still extremely scary.

Meh,my sister has a tarantula.They look cool but there really boring.You cant teach it tricks,teach it its name,or pat in on its back,or anything.Its like having a turtle,they just dont do anything.

Depends on the tarantula. If she has a G. Rosea, then yeah, it’s not going to do much (unless you provoke it :razz:).

EDIT: Also, you could pat it’s back, if you don’t mind horrendous itching. :grin:

Unless you get one of those aggresive Mexican ones. They like to bite.

Or the P. Murinus. Breeders don’t call ‘em OBTs (Orange Bitey Things) for nothin’ . :razz:

Despite my atrocious entomophobia, tarantulas don’t scare me.

i kinda realized i am slightly afraid of spiders that are not pets or in exhibits or something

i just worry that when i am not looking they are going to bit me X_X

so i kept my eye on a particular one i saw when i was in the shower…

maybe it’s not fear but distrust :razz:

then i thought: but if he bites me i might get super powers…

Perhaps, but being spiderman doesn’t worth the pain in the biting. (Small pain that is!)

I think that they are great as pets, unless you are an archanophobe ofcourse…

They’re probably a great pet for an arachnophobe. Once they gets past the initial shock of it, and see that it’s not even aware of the owner’s existence (although it may learn to associate your vibrations with food and water), then they will likely realize how fascinating (and on a very primitive level, intelligent) tarantulas can be.

I got a kick out of this picture I found while doing a brief search for tarantula images. I wonder how many kids would like to have this stuffed animal in their collection. :tongue:

I really can’t say that I could ever imagine having one for a pet. I don’t care for spiders at all. I never kill them, but take them outside when I find them in the house. Still, the big, fast ones freak me out, and tarantulas are like a nightmare. I wish I could empathize for a second with those people who like them and keep them as pets (it’d be an educational experience), but that’ll never happen. I’ll stick with my love for dogs. :smile:

Are they THAT brain dead?

They can barely see a few feet in front of them, so we likely just look like enormous trees to them. Also, they run almost completely on instinct, so they have no concept of a “provider”.

Something I found very interesting:

Even though they aren’t capable of thought beyond what’s been hardcoded into their species, every single tarantula has a different personality. Some even seem to have a basic concept of “ownership”, in that if you, for example, take their water dish out to refill it, they will sometimes actually latch on to it until you let it go or wrestle it from them.

Never knew such a tiny cache of preprogrammed behaviors could also be home to behaviors usually associated with mammals.

This is interesting. But tarantulas are scary to me. But not as scary as bugs like Daddy Longlegs (that’s how you call them, right?)… :tongue: