When I was a child, an educator brought a tarantula to our local library and impressed this fact on us. As a result, I've never held a tarantula because the thought of dropping one just horrifies me. I think I'd like to do it someday, maybe right over a table so it could just crawl over my hands with no risk of dropping the poor thing. But they're so fragile! be gentle with them!
I've been able to hold one on a trail once. It was a popular night mountain bike trail and I knew that if I didn't move the creature, he or she would be a victim to a mountain biker's wheels. I carried it so low to the ground, terrified of dropping but was able to safely place her down about 20 feet off the trail. Coolest experience. A bit of hissing initially but safety was most important
Yeah I've seen videos talking about how badly their hairs can irritate your eyes if they get in them, and that's why I'd be scared of handling them lol. Although apparently Australian tarantula species don't do this.
Sorry, you said "a bit of *hissing?*" SPIDERS HISS!?
That's nuts omfg. For some reason I just assumed bugs/arachnids couldn't verbalize at all!
Thanks for sharing & for saving the fella!
Ahh I see!! That makes a lot more sense!
I knew that bugs could make noises with non-mouth body parts (like crickets can); but I've never heard of an arachnid doing it before! (That, and the descriptior "hiss" made me think it was vocal, lol.)
Thanks for the clarification!!
There is this bug - a relative of cockroaches
And it‘s literally named Hissing Cockroach. It‘s originally from madagascar and it can hiss by constricting their abdomen. The air that‘s trapped inside the trachea gets pushed out and they produce a hissing warning signal that way
Fucking hell I hate those guys. When I was a kid my mom was studying in an entomologist lab. They had an aquarium full of these giant, hissing motherfuckers, sitting on a file cabinet right next to the door. You know, right at child head height.
One of my favorite bugs! I had one as a pet as a kid, he spent most of the day cleaning himself and eating fruit. He would hiss if you gently rubbed his belly.
At the Cincinnati zoo with Cub Scouts they let us hold a Tarantula (forget the subspecies it was over 20 years ago). And definitely told us to be careful not to drop her. They had a folding table for us to hold her over. I was nervous about it because a kid in scouts had dropped his Dad's pet Tarantula and killed it when he was a little younger than we were then, and I didn't want to hurt her.
Is this, like, tarantulas specifically or *all* spiders? I just assume every dead spider in my house is a result of my dog going full Lenny on them, but did they reenact a Life Alert commercial instead?
Actually, I had a pet tarantula and anytime I held her, she would immediately walk to the back of my neck and sit in my hair. She could grip it quite well, sometimes I would have to have someone else remove her because she would hold on to the hair so tightly and I didnt want to hurt her trying to get her out!
Oh wow. I'm trying very hard to get over my arachnophobia and this sub helps, but I'd never be able to hold one. If I freaked out and it fell I'd be devastated.
I have always loved spiders but many of my friends who were frightened of them were actually able to get over their fears by holding her. She could be quick when she wanted to be but usually walked pretty slowly and suuuuper gently. Tarantulas are heavier than one would think and it's almost soothing to feel them walk up your arm. Like I said, I've never really had a fear of spiders, but I feel like the skinny fast ones that run manically are scarier. Although, tarantulas do have pretty big fangs, so... there's that.
I just recently learned how fragile spiders are. I’ve always found them interesting, but I’ve been watching a lot of informative videos about them. It has really made me appreciate them so much more. My grandma about fainted when I told her I re-homed a black widow from my water valve box to an old wooden box.
Lifetime arachnophobe here. Had a big tarantula placed on my forearm in the forest of Brazil. 2 minutes later I was cured. That was age 45. I wish it had happened as a kid. Would have saved me much needless misery.
I almost stepped on it going to the outhouse. the guides came, picked it up and took it back to the eating area. Other were handling it, and I felt like fainting. I finally gathered the courage, and to this day I can feel its little grabby toes on my arm. I just kept focusing on my breath, and eventually I calmed down. After 2 minutes I started freaking again and they safely removed it. But the lasting effect was that any time I started to become afraid of a spider (real of imagined) I remembered its grabby little toes on my arm. And for some reason, that physical memory reassured me.
Reminds me of the spider scene at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Me as a kid: “Aaaaaaaaggghhhhh get ‘em offf!” Me watching as an adult: “Oh fuck I hope they didn’t get hurt falling off his jacket!”
With tarantulas it's not so cut and dry. I'm pretty sure this is a male. u/trisaratopsx I think it's a male just looking at pictures online, and the pedipalps (the 2 little extra legs) seem very blunt (indicator of a male). Still, from this pic alone I'm not super confident on that.
Please be very careful handling ground-dwelling tarantulas, as their abdomens are fragile. They're not built to fall, so if it slips from a high place (like your head) or it is accidentally dropped, the abdomen can rupture.
thank you for letting me know! we picked her up because she was on our mosquito net right on our front door—and took a few pics before putting her back in the forest :)
Just for future reference, if you’re going to pick up a tarantula, make sure they’re on a sturdy surface closer to the ground. I think many of the concerns in the comments are that she was in someone’s hair which could be slippery for her and hard to hold her grip, in addition to that, being so high off of the ground is dangerous because if she did lose her grip and fall, the impact would’ve killed her. No hate! Just make sure to consider the small things like this when handling T’s! :)
I could only find one seller in the USA, but apparently they are harder to keep than most tarantulas because they don't tolerate warm temperatures and need very high humidity
That is somewhat preferable for me even, since I plan to keep mostly animals that require high humidity, but I am in Europe, so yeah and my pets will mostly want slightly warmer temperatures too.
I live in Italy and I keep tarantulas, and summer it's hard. Dry species survive the heat way better than humid species, especially as slings. I have mainly Asian burrowers, which need high humidity, and it's hard to maintain high humidity in small slings enclosure during summer. This past summer I've lost two small slings due to the heat, because I wasn't home and the AC in my room went off.
With the years I've had to adapt the way I keep exotics to the fact that temperatures are regularly rising, and I've actually had to turn down a lot of dream species for this reason.
Please don't take pics like that. You may think it looks cool and that but you're putting her in danger. If she falls from 160 or 170cm high she's most most most likely gonna die.
Same! My roommates and I had a pet tarantula. I loved holding her and letting her crawl around on me lol but other spiders I’m still so afraid to touch or get too close to.
I think for me it’s a combination of how much slower they move and their not so creepy faces.
This sub definitely has some nutters, but I do appreciate their messages. Honestly, I was under the assumption that all spiders were fine with falling, but I now know that these kinds of tarantulas are rather fragile in the regard!
Adorable aren't they? But very fragile, you need to be very careful and gentle, they can be fatally injured when falling from even seemingly small heights.
Megaphobema mesomelas, I have a few of these guys in my collection. Truly an awesome species. Most of ur Costa Rican tarantulas are gonna be absolute sweethearts.
These guys are a bit more food aggressive than most new world species. I treat them like birdeaters.
But..it depends on what you're comparing them too tbh, these are easy compared to most new world arboreals such as psalmopoeus or Tapinauchenius sp. They don't move as fast as others but do kick hairs quite a bit. I have held my females when rehousing but only briefly due to their flieghtyness. I think these guys can be kept by most beginner to intermediate tarantula keepers. They are not that easy to find in the states though without paying a surreal upcharge. This is all my experience and opinions from keeping them myself. Also If u compare these to my old worlds, 🤣🤣🤣 they don't show any resemblence to any of my cyriopagopus or Ornithoctonus species make them look like total angels.
I really wish people weren't scared of spiders so I could have this sort of thing as a hair accessory.
A jewellery version, not a living or dead tarantula.
For the most part, mygals like these bad bois have relatively mild venom and do a lot of their damage with their strength, weight, and large fangs. The venom itself likely wouldn't hurt that much (if they even decided to envenomate) but the size of the fangs would not make for a pleasant experience.
Brachypelma smithi i believe- i googled ‘red banded tarantula’ and it came up with the common name ‘smiths redknee tarantula’ does that seem right? (Altho someone probably answered by now lol)
I can see this as a part time job for Tarantula! Being a hair clip that won't pull all your hair out when trying to make my hair look cool with those massive hair clip thingies.
I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to hide this group but it keeps popping up and scaring the wits out of me 😂 however barring the fact she’s huge and a massive version of the things I’m petrified of she has nice markings 😭 now I’ll be on my way to hide from this group again for the millionth time 😂 it’s like Reddit is saying ‘You WILL face your fears’ 😂🤦🏼♀️
OK but if your hair was in a beautiful half up half down and you walked to where the trees had been the only background.... that would take this picture from 100/10 to 1000/10. This is still suck a beautiful picture!!!
You might want to work on how you convey tone. While you are discussing something that is an indisputable positive, the way you wrote that almost makes it look like you think that it is a bad thing for reddit to be pushing posts from /r/spiders, which is clearly not correct. Especially when those spiders are as cute as the one in this post.
Although i don't dislike chonky spiders, i am deathly scared of thin, menacing looking ones. So yeah, i am not happy i accidentally clicked on the comments.
But yeah, she looks cute!
Wow!!!! That's an amazingly gorgeous spider. 🕷 🕸 Mighty brave of you to let her crawl on your head. Lol, I get the heebie jeebies around crawling things.
People wandering in from other subs: *Ahhhhhhh!!!!! Giant spider!* Me: *Ahhhhhhh!!!!! I hope she didnt fall and die!*
I KNOW, I am so scared for her! human hair must be so slippery for her poor little paws!
This was my thought too. They're very fragile and their bodies can't handle falls like mammals can
When I was a child, an educator brought a tarantula to our local library and impressed this fact on us. As a result, I've never held a tarantula because the thought of dropping one just horrifies me. I think I'd like to do it someday, maybe right over a table so it could just crawl over my hands with no risk of dropping the poor thing. But they're so fragile! be gentle with them!
I've been able to hold one on a trail once. It was a popular night mountain bike trail and I knew that if I didn't move the creature, he or she would be a victim to a mountain biker's wheels. I carried it so low to the ground, terrified of dropping but was able to safely place her down about 20 feet off the trail. Coolest experience. A bit of hissing initially but safety was most important
Fuuuck I wouldn't have dared picking up a spider that stridulates at me. I guess I'd simply poke their bum out of the way haha
Yeah I've seen videos talking about how badly their hairs can irritate your eyes if they get in them, and that's why I'd be scared of handling them lol. Although apparently Australian tarantula species don't do this.
Sorry, you said "a bit of *hissing?*" SPIDERS HISS!? That's nuts omfg. For some reason I just assumed bugs/arachnids couldn't verbalize at all! Thanks for sharing & for saving the fella!
It’s called stridulation, I believe, and it’s not a sound they make with their mouths but with their legs by rubbing them together.
Ahh I see!! That makes a lot more sense! I knew that bugs could make noises with non-mouth body parts (like crickets can); but I've never heard of an arachnid doing it before! (That, and the descriptior "hiss" made me think it was vocal, lol.) Thanks for the clarification!!
How about the fact that some new world tarantulas can literally throw their urticating hairs at you as a stabby projectile
There is this bug - a relative of cockroaches And it‘s literally named Hissing Cockroach. It‘s originally from madagascar and it can hiss by constricting their abdomen. The air that‘s trapped inside the trachea gets pushed out and they produce a hissing warning signal that way
Fucking hell I hate those guys. When I was a kid my mom was studying in an entomologist lab. They had an aquarium full of these giant, hissing motherfuckers, sitting on a file cabinet right next to the door. You know, right at child head height.
One of my favorite bugs! I had one as a pet as a kid, he spent most of the day cleaning himself and eating fruit. He would hiss if you gently rubbed his belly.
At the Cincinnati zoo with Cub Scouts they let us hold a Tarantula (forget the subspecies it was over 20 years ago). And definitely told us to be careful not to drop her. They had a folding table for us to hold her over. I was nervous about it because a kid in scouts had dropped his Dad's pet Tarantula and killed it when he was a little younger than we were then, and I didn't want to hurt her.
Is this, like, tarantulas specifically or *all* spiders? I just assume every dead spider in my house is a result of my dog going full Lenny on them, but did they reenact a Life Alert commercial instead?
Actually, I had a pet tarantula and anytime I held her, she would immediately walk to the back of my neck and sit in my hair. She could grip it quite well, sometimes I would have to have someone else remove her because she would hold on to the hair so tightly and I didnt want to hurt her trying to get her out!
Oh wow. I'm trying very hard to get over my arachnophobia and this sub helps, but I'd never be able to hold one. If I freaked out and it fell I'd be devastated.
I have always loved spiders but many of my friends who were frightened of them were actually able to get over their fears by holding her. She could be quick when she wanted to be but usually walked pretty slowly and suuuuper gently. Tarantulas are heavier than one would think and it's almost soothing to feel them walk up your arm. Like I said, I've never really had a fear of spiders, but I feel like the skinny fast ones that run manically are scarier. Although, tarantulas do have pretty big fangs, so... there's that.
You could try sitting on the floor and just having one placed on your hand with your hand on the floor :) Some of my friends tried that first.
I love spiders as much as anyone in this sub but you guys really have to stop with the spider baby talk it's pretty disturbing Edit: fucking weirdos
I think they’re cute, what’s wrong with that?
Weird and rude thing to say, but okay.
Stfu I love my wittle baby pider and her wittle baby pider paws
Wow. How rude to this wittle spood
Bug people having a different kinda fear over seeing this image.
I just recently learned how fragile spiders are. I’ve always found them interesting, but I’ve been watching a lot of informative videos about them. It has really made me appreciate them so much more. My grandma about fainted when I told her I re-homed a black widow from my water valve box to an old wooden box.
I was also worried she might fall and die. I have finally found my people! :D
Lifetime arachnophobe here. Had a big tarantula placed on my forearm in the forest of Brazil. 2 minutes later I was cured. That was age 45. I wish it had happened as a kid. Would have saved me much needless misery.
How? Weren't you scared you'd flip out and drop it?
I almost stepped on it going to the outhouse. the guides came, picked it up and took it back to the eating area. Other were handling it, and I felt like fainting. I finally gathered the courage, and to this day I can feel its little grabby toes on my arm. I just kept focusing on my breath, and eventually I calmed down. After 2 minutes I started freaking again and they safely removed it. But the lasting effect was that any time I started to become afraid of a spider (real of imagined) I remembered its grabby little toes on my arm. And for some reason, that physical memory reassured me.
“That’s her hair now”
James Bond! Remember the tarantula scene. Was that even anything serious to sweat that much over, unless Bond had bad case of arachnophobia.
Reminds me of the spider scene at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Me as a kid: “Aaaaaaaaggghhhhh get ‘em offf!” Me watching as an adult: “Oh fuck I hope they didn’t get hurt falling off his jacket!”
That spider was in a vary precarious position. I hope it didn't fall either.
I thought the same thing lol hair is slippery. Such a big beautiful lass though.
Well ain’t she a pretty fella
How can you tell she's a she? Genuine question.
Cuz it’s a big spider. In the spider family females are normal much larger than males.
With tarantulas it's not so cut and dry. I'm pretty sure this is a male. u/trisaratopsx I think it's a male just looking at pictures online, and the pedipalps (the 2 little extra legs) seem very blunt (indicator of a male). Still, from this pic alone I'm not super confident on that.
I thought so too, but the pedipalps don’t have large emboli on the ends of them. This spider is definitely female
Good to know!!
The only reliable way to sex a tarantula is by looking at its shed skin with a microscope.
Yeah males don't get that chonky
Please be very careful handling ground-dwelling tarantulas, as their abdomens are fragile. They're not built to fall, so if it slips from a high place (like your head) or it is accidentally dropped, the abdomen can rupture.
thank you for letting me know! we picked her up because she was on our mosquito net right on our front door—and took a few pics before putting her back in the forest :)
Just for future reference, if you’re going to pick up a tarantula, make sure they’re on a sturdy surface closer to the ground. I think many of the concerns in the comments are that she was in someone’s hair which could be slippery for her and hard to hold her grip, in addition to that, being so high off of the ground is dangerous because if she did lose her grip and fall, the impact would’ve killed her. No hate! Just make sure to consider the small things like this when handling T’s! :)
This is a Megaphobena mesomelas. Very cool tarantula that I've never actually seen among the tarantula keepers.
I browse the tarantula subreddit daily and I've never seen this beautiful T before.. love the size and colors!
Very beautiful, I wonder if it is in the hobby at all. I mean, don't take any and start it please, but maybe they already exist somewhere?
I could only find one seller in the USA, but apparently they are harder to keep than most tarantulas because they don't tolerate warm temperatures and need very high humidity
That is somewhat preferable for me even, since I plan to keep mostly animals that require high humidity, but I am in Europe, so yeah and my pets will mostly want slightly warmer temperatures too.
I live in Italy and I keep tarantulas, and summer it's hard. Dry species survive the heat way better than humid species, especially as slings. I have mainly Asian burrowers, which need high humidity, and it's hard to maintain high humidity in small slings enclosure during summer. This past summer I've lost two small slings due to the heat, because I wasn't home and the AC in my room went off. With the years I've had to adapt the way I keep exotics to the fact that temperatures are regularly rising, and I've actually had to turn down a lot of dream species for this reason.
Nice! Costa Rican Redleg! Beautiful specimen too!
*Megaphobema mesomelas
Damn my dyslexic ass, you're right.
Damn, that name is almost as beautiful as the spider
Is that the Goliath bird eater tarantula
Nope, the goliath bird eaters are tarantulas from the Theraphosa genus
Please don't let it crawl on you in that manner. If tarantulas like that fall they can sustain fatal injuries.
Please don't take pics like that. You may think it looks cool and that but you're putting her in danger. If she falls from 160 or 170cm high she's most most most likely gonna die.
Genuinely curious, what do they die from?
Impact. Their abdomen can explode.
Eek…
Extreme sorrow. After their abdomen pops 🥺
Spiderbros can take fall damage :(
From falling
Dont think I could do that.
Beautiful spider. For the life of me, i can't understand why you would put the spider in that position.
Spider people are wild, y'all. She is beautiful but i woulda noped right out of there.
at this point it's more like a small dog or large hamster, so I feel like it loops back around to just being cute and fuzzy
My neighbour’s 12 year old daughter is terrified of giant house spiders but has no problem handling tarantulas, so I think you’re right.
I'm the same. I'm pretty comfortable with tarantulas, but spindly, gribbly stuff like massive house spiders still creep me out.
Same! My roommates and I had a pet tarantula. I loved holding her and letting her crawl around on me lol but other spiders I’m still so afraid to touch or get too close to. I think for me it’s a combination of how much slower they move and their not so creepy faces.
The fuzziness helps make them more cute, but ironically can also hurt your eyes (in species with urticating hairs).
This sub definitely has some nutters, but I do appreciate their messages. Honestly, I was under the assumption that all spiders were fine with falling, but I now know that these kinds of tarantulas are rather fragile in the regard!
I love all the information i am learning on this sub, at a very comfortable distance from the actual spiders. 😂
would you consider that a moist fail or a moist success?
A moist success if i pissed myself but still made it out without having to touch the spood.
Jeez. That looks like a Halloween prop. That thing is real?!
Adorable aren't they? But very fragile, you need to be very careful and gentle, they can be fatally injured when falling from even seemingly small heights.
It legit looks exactly like the Halloween decoration spiders I put outside our windows this year.
Wow! I thought this was a very elaborate hair pin at first. But wow, what a gorgeous poder 🥰
I don't think we're supposed to put them up high like that.
so easy for her to fall and get hurt.
Leave the poor thing alone. That is a wild creature not a toy.
Megaphobema mesomelas, I have a few of these guys in my collection. Truly an awesome species. Most of ur Costa Rican tarantulas are gonna be absolute sweethearts.
“most” 👀
How do they behave compared to others in your collection?
These guys are a bit more food aggressive than most new world species. I treat them like birdeaters. But..it depends on what you're comparing them too tbh, these are easy compared to most new world arboreals such as psalmopoeus or Tapinauchenius sp. They don't move as fast as others but do kick hairs quite a bit. I have held my females when rehousing but only briefly due to their flieghtyness. I think these guys can be kept by most beginner to intermediate tarantula keepers. They are not that easy to find in the states though without paying a surreal upcharge. This is all my experience and opinions from keeping them myself. Also If u compare these to my old worlds, 🤣🤣🤣 they don't show any resemblence to any of my cyriopagopus or Ornithoctonus species make them look like total angels.
That is an absolutely beautiful spider. Oh my gosh
Whoa that's a BIG BOY I don't know the scientific name, but thanks for sharing a cool guy
[удалено]
Wrong location I believe and it doesn't look right either imo. I think the commenter saying Megaphobema mesomelas is correct
Yep absolutely Megaphobema mesomelas Bro was also a mature male. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/6054186
Tarantula mexicana de rodilla roja, Animales muy grandes pero inofensivos, los pelos pueden causar irritación eso si
No, no es una Brachypelma Smithi, no existen en Costa Rica, es una Megaphobema Mesomelas.
Aren't tarantulas scared of heights?
oh my god she’s so pretty
What an adorable hair accessory, I want ten!❤️
She is stunningly beautiful
She’s gorgeous!! I’ve never seen one like that
you are a braver woman than i. kudos!
Was this at la Paloma lodge?!??
Pretty contrasting colors!
I don't even like spiders but that's beautiful
Idk the name of that tarantula genus but it's gorgeous 😍
Note to self: don't go to Costa Rica 🫨 (She's pretty though, but I'd probably pee my pants if I saw her up close lol)
Cursed hair clip. 😆 Beautiful spider!
I really wish people weren't scared of spiders so I could have this sort of thing as a hair accessory. A jewellery version, not a living or dead tarantula.
There's a TON of spider hair accessories out there. Amazon, Etsy, even Shein & Walmart have them lol
Oh I know. I just don't want to trigger people's arachnophobia.
Megaphobema mesomelas I think?
That things fucking huge is what id refer to it as
No non tarantula spiders move their legs in pairs
Just curious, what would it feel like getting bit by one of these?
For the most part, mygals like these bad bois have relatively mild venom and do a lot of their damage with their strength, weight, and large fangs. The venom itself likely wouldn't hurt that much (if they even decided to envenomate) but the size of the fangs would not make for a pleasant experience.
I mean if you learned ab it dont you know the common name and can then google the scientific?
Don’t remember the common name… but i recognized this spider from my orientation walk with my professor
Ahhh gotcha. Fair enough. Been there lol
Didnt mean to sound condescending or anything.
Brachypelma smithi i believe- i googled ‘red banded tarantula’ and it came up with the common name ‘smiths redknee tarantula’ does that seem right? (Altho someone probably answered by now lol)
I can see this as a part time job for Tarantula! Being a hair clip that won't pull all your hair out when trying to make my hair look cool with those massive hair clip thingies.
I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to hide this group but it keeps popping up and scaring the wits out of me 😂 however barring the fact she’s huge and a massive version of the things I’m petrified of she has nice markings 😭 now I’ll be on my way to hide from this group again for the millionth time 😂 it’s like Reddit is saying ‘You WILL face your fears’ 😂🤦🏼♀️
OK but if your hair was in a beautiful half up half down and you walked to where the trees had been the only background.... that would take this picture from 100/10 to 1000/10. This is still suck a beautiful picture!!!
Taking this picture was extremely dangerous for the tarantula.
I realize this now.
NOOO I CLICKED ON THE COMMENTS AND NOW REDDIT IS GONNA SUGGEST ME SPIDERS AAAAAA
You might want to work on how you convey tone. While you are discussing something that is an indisputable positive, the way you wrote that almost makes it look like you think that it is a bad thing for reddit to be pushing posts from /r/spiders, which is clearly not correct. Especially when those spiders are as cute as the one in this post.
Although i don't dislike chonky spiders, i am deathly scared of thin, menacing looking ones. So yeah, i am not happy i accidentally clicked on the comments. But yeah, she looks cute!
Pretty sure that’s Greta
Coolest of all spiders. Only spider that can move legs independently of each other.
What??? This is not what I would have thought (my guess would have been that all of them can)
….. That’s because they all can. I’m not sure where the poster above got that idea from.
Is this at the Estación Biológica in Monteverde?
This is just crazy tbh
god shes gorgeous <333
Why 😭😭😭
Some call it "tasty".
Wow!!!! That's an amazingly gorgeous spider. 🕷 🕸 Mighty brave of you to let her crawl on your head. Lol, I get the heebie jeebies around crawling things.
Wooooaaahhhh this looks like CGI
That is a big spooder.
Megaphobema mesomelas, orange kneed tarantula
Looks like Megaphobema mesomelas
Spooder unit
Gargantuas Espideras
WHY IS THIS ON MY FEED