Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter

from the January 9, 2005 Newsletter issued from Hacienda Komchén de Los Pájaros just outside Dzemul, Yucatán, Mexico
SPOT, THE TARANTULA
In dawn's dim light each morning I can barely make out a dark spot in or around my sink. The spot changes location from day to day so it's always interesting to see where Spot has moved during the night. When I return from jogging there's enough light go see that Spot is a black, very hairy tarantula.

Spot is a male and I don't expect him to stay around my sink for long. I know he's a male because he has very large, bulbous "pedipalps" -- leglike structures arising from his head area. There's a page on "sexing tarantulas" at www.tarantulas.com/howtosex.asp.

The reason I don't expect Spot to hang around long is that mature male tarantulas are absolutely obsessed with finding females, who generally spend their time secure in their burrows. In fact, males search for females with such fervor that they literally wear themselves out. Females may live 30 years or more, depending on the species, while males, even under the best of conditions, seldom last over a year and a half. In nature their lifespan may be measured in only weeks or days. Spot has been looking a little ragged lately so I expect his imminent demise.

Over 50 tarantula species are found in the southwestern and south-central US, and surely many more than that here in Mexico. I don't know what species Spot is, but I can tell you that he's smallish for a tarntula, foot-to-foot only about as wide as the top of a coffee cup, and very hairy. Because of those hairs I don't handle him. Usually people have more trouble with irritating tarantula hairs than with bites. The bites, which are hard to provoke, are not at all dangerous.

A slick National Geographic site about tarantulas is at www.nationalgeographic.com/tarantulas/index2.html and basic info on US tarantulas and tarantulas as pets can be found at www.tarantulas.com/found.asp.