TARANTULAS

These creatures are the terror of the night. If you don’t think so, just imagine waking up with one of these giant spiders crawling on your face. Fortunately, when we encounter them on the trail, they generally don’t move very quickly. (Although, they can move quickly.) They do carry a venom. However, the poison is very mild, and you really have to threaten them to get bitten.

They sometimes seem so gentle that some people like to handle them. However, there are little hairs covered with barbs on the end of their abdomen. When you molest tarantulas, they can rub those tiny hairs off onto your fingers. Those fingers then go into your eyes, where those tiny hairs can be transferred into your eyeballs. The hairs are very irritating and generally stay in there for about a year. Some tropical tarantulas, which end up in pet stores, are more poisonous and have even more irritating hairs than our local species. So, as cute and cuddly as one person in 10,000 thinks they are, they are best left alone.

Mike Kuhn

12-3-04