Golden Gaytime

An Australian Favorite.

Introducing Lucy

When I lived in Australia for a year back in 2005 I caught a redback spider and put it in a jar. She was a bit of a bitch, extremely venomous despite her size & very mean. She was fun to watch as she devoured things 10 times her size. I followed that capture up with a huntsman spider and put her in a cage. Huntsman spiders can get huge with an over a 8 inch leg span. They, too, are quite cantankerous but their bite is no worse than a wasp sting. I still didn't pick her up as she attacked anything that came near her. That's her (or him) up above. I called it Hunter...original.

I missed having a 'pet' spider so I recently went down to petland and bought a Chilean Rose tarantula. She's beautiful with a 5 inch leg span, metallic rose coloured carapace, and bristles covering her body (they're like hairs, soft, but are not the same thing). When she's scared she can flick those bristles which can cause mild skin or eye irritation...it's a pretty cool defense mechanism. She did that to me once when I startled her.

The weird thing is she is quite friendly. I can pick her up, even pet her. Sometimes she will spin silk for me as I spool it around my fingers. It took me a while to get comfortable holding her as her fangs are about 1 centimeter in length...if she decided to bite me, even without using her venom, it would hurt like a bitch.

For whatever reason I developed a healthy respect and interest in all things arachnid. They are the perfect predator, have been around for hundreds of millions of years, and have evolved the craziest uses for their silk. Some are master architects, some use their webbing to capture a bubble of air so they can swim underwater, some use it to lasso passing insects, some even use it to capture drafts so they can fly.

Not Lucy, though, she just sprays it all over her cage randomly coating everything in sight. She still rocks though.