[SPAM] Re: [at-l] sparkling

[gregbrown at mindspring.com (Greg Brown)]

>
> In a message dated 4/25/2005 3:42:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
> gregbrown@mindspring.com writes:
>> I grew up in Arizona and saw many a tarantula, but nothing even near
>> that big.
> Size is one thing but the spiders in Brazil that are about one foot in 
> Diameter also can jump and their incisors can easily puncture a 
> human's skin.? This brings a question to mind:? Do all Tarantula's 
> jjump?? Also, Is the Tarantula the same as the Tarantella??

I believe all tarantulas can jump.  The (comparatively) little ones 
found in AZ can jump quite high.  My sister decided she wanted one as a 
pet and tried to catch a fair sized tarantula by sliding a piece of 
paper under it (??) and from there to try and get it into a cup (and 
from there into a cracked aquarium that was going to be thrown away).  
Well, as soon as the paper touched the hairs on that thing's legs it 
SPRANG up about 18" inches and scared the bejebus out of EVERYONE, 
mostly my sister who gave up on her quest immediately.  Despite their 
ability to jump tarantulas are quite fragile.  A fall of six inches, 
perhaps less, if the spider doesn't land on it's legs "just right" can 
kill the spider.  A fall on the back can take as little as three inches 
to kill.

Tarantella are different from Tarantullas.  (this is from memory so I 
could be wrong) - the Tarantella is also know as the Wolf Spider.  The 
Wolf Spider lives in holes in the ground and are big and ugly, but not 
as big as the tarantula.   Wolf Spiders spin webs in their burrows but 
they run their pray down rather then just waiting for it to get caught 
in a web.

Even the tarantula has enemies.  In south america they are roasted over 
a fire to remove the hair then eaten (being related to the lobster not 
too indirectly I am told they taste similar).  Tarantulas in Arizona 
live in fear of the Tarantula Hawk - I kind of super-sized orange and 
black bee that stings the spider, drags it off, and lays one egg on top 
giving the baby bees something to eat.   The tarantula lives as the 
larve hatches and burrows into the spider avoiding all major organs as 
long as possible.

These super-bees also sting people and though I was fortunate enough to 
not be stung by one I am told they are among the most painful stings of 
any create known in nature.

At least the AT doesn't have to contend with these creatures!

Greg