Steve Ferguson, age 16, of Indianapolis. IA. for his question:
Some people shudder when the innocent little web‑spinning spider is mentioned. The big tarantula spiders fill them with fear. This is all very sad, For the little house spider is actually a life saver. She traps and destroys many disease‑carrying flies and other insects. And, one of our native tarantulas makes an interesting and quite harmless pet. It learns to recognize its owner and shows other signs of intelligence.
Nowadays, any large, hairy, spider is called a tarantulas . no matter where he lives, But the original tarantula was w large hairy spider who lived near Taranto in Italy. In.the Middle Ages, there was a strange superstition about the big spider of Taranto.
Like any spider this tarantula‑would bite when cornered or tormented. The townspeople of Taranto were sure that a person bitten by the tarantula would, certainly die, unless he danced and danced to a special tune. The superstition is now buried in the past, but the dance has survived as the lively and carefree tarantella..
: Throughout the world, there are about 30,000 different spiders, large and small,. All of them are our friends, hungry meat‑eaters who devour great quantities of enemy insects. Almost all the spiders, however, have fangs and poison glands. Most of them are small, but never cowardly. When threatened, they bite and some of the big spiders are less poisonous than the smaller ones. Hence, it is unwise to torment a spider or to handle her roughly, .
The tarantulas, are really ; big spiders., live in warm climates. One furry, long‑legged creature of the Ameriean tropics is eight, inches wide.
A tarantula of tarantula of Central and South America. has a body four and a half inches long. These big spiders make their homes in trees where they sometimes catch and devour small birds.
Our native tarantula lives in the sunny southwest where she digs herself a deep burrow in the sand. Her body may be two inches long and each of her eight furry legs may be two inches long. Her skin is dark brown and she is covered with long, rusty brown hairs, If you have never seen a big spider, this creature may give you quite a shock, However, she is quite harmless and very shy.
In the burrow, there may be four or five hundred eggs or young spiderling so the mother spider guards them carefully, but even so only a few of them will live to become adults. Mary of them will be carried off by a large orange and blue stinger called the tarantula wasp. The mother tarantula stays home during the day and hunts only at night. If you should catch her, this tarantula may try to bite you. Unless it becomes infected, her bite is not poisonous, However, it is very painful. So, let's be very careful when we handle the tarantulas or any other kind of spider, large or small.