Unexpected Houseguest

[Monkey@Arms]

I used to have a 3 gallon terrarium with rocks, sand, a small log, etc. A perfect habitat for a tarantula but no residents and when people asked what was in it I would tell them "My pet tarantula". They would look in the tank and ask where the thing was and I would remark "damn, it must have got out again, watch where you sit".

Being VERY arachnophobic myself, I would never have a pet spider but it was fun to inflict a bit of my own fear on others. If I ever saw that thing crawling across my living room floor, I would scream like a girl, hike up my kilt, and run. My daughter asked me if she could have one for a pet. Actually she only got as far as "Daddy, can I have a pet tara..." before I told her "ABSOLUTELY NOT"

You know, I'm actually not all that keen about close encounters with many types of insects and arachnids, but to me, the hairs and size of the tarantula actually make them less "bug like" and more pet worthy. Go figure. My tarantula actually did escape once while I was asleep. My roommate was not amused when I asked for help in finding her, which we did . . . that spider never looked bigger then when I saw her on the floor near my bed covers

Now this is a spider with an appearance that only its mother could love



Apparently they are more ugly than dangerous. More info on the Camel Spider here

[Panache]

Jake,

Those arachnids look so utterly huge because of the perspective in which that photograph was taken. There was a lot of misinformation on them that has been circling around the interent for years (things like that they scream).

I believe they are a type of sunspider.

Cheers

Jamie

[SoldierSpike]

They actually get rather large, about 1.25 times the avg tarantula, and they do chase people, and they are PITA to kill, I've dropped large and heavy books on them, and then had to step on the book to kill it. And no, I didn't desecrate one of the few novels we had at the time, it was a spare technical manual.

Marc