Because K's't'lk would approve

[dianeduane]

SMITHTOWN, N.Y. - An orange tarantula with venomous fangs was rescued by animal cruelty officials today from an owner who said he could not longer care for the spider.

"This is the kind of spider that nightmares are made of," said Roy Gross, chief of the Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He said the spider is moody and aggressive, and when it rears up on its hind legs, it can jump three feet and will bite with its large fangs. The venomous bites are dangerous to humans, Gross said.

The spider, known as an ornate golden baboon spider, (beware, scary spider pic behind the link) has a fat body that is covered in orange hair, along with the legs. Male baboon spiders have a leg span of about 8 inches, females slightly larger, and their bodies can be 6 inches wide.

Baboon spiders have a life span of up to 25 years, while most other spiders live only a year or so. The spiders, native to southern Africa, spend most time near their nests, which are usually silk lined holes in the ground.

The SPCA was appealing to the public for financial help to care for the spider, but it wasn't immediately clear what would happen to it.

Well, the Suffolk County SPCA website has a PayPal button, so I'm going to go over there and give them a few bucks to Help The Spider. Poor baby!

[EDIT: The wee beastie has been sent to an animal sanctuary in Massachusetts.]

Comments

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

25 years. Wow. That's pretty amazing. The three-foot leap is the thing that bothers me - you think you've got room to get away, and suddenly it's flying through the air at you.

Eugh.

[mithriltabby]

Maybe it can get a job helping people overcome their phobias...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

'was rescued from'?

I'm wondering if it was more a case of the owner phoning them up and asking for help, given the rest of the article. Perhaps it's just that it's the Society for the Presentation of Cutlery to Animals ... oh hell, too much Agatha Heterodyne ... that was involved which led to the term 'rescue' being used.

[rosmar.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that's Shelob, right there. Yikes.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Oh, grand. Something more frightening than a Australian Huntsman Spider (http://jblum.livejournal.com/65164.html). (Tale courtesy of Doctor Who author jblum)

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Star Crossed Lovers (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2007/08/vampyroteuthis_lg.jpg) destined never to meet, alas.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I'm not the only one who thought that.

In other news, your icon rocks so hard.

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

NIGHTMARE SPIDER ARGH

I have a feeling K's't'lk is way, way, WAY nicer than this spider, DD. Also quite a bit better educated!

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

Huntsmen are actually pretty awesome to have around, at least in your garden. They are ravenous consumers of all kinds of nasty bugs.

[taffy-cat-tea.livejournal.com]

The spider sounds a little like my youngest rabbit. At the vets she'll bite my hand and leap onto my shoulder the minute she's out of the carrier.
Surprising, for a two pound bunny. Unfortunately, she's not orange.
Poor spidey. < 3

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Interesting the bites are dangerous from the news article but from the Nature notes it isn't. Anyone willing to test??

Considering its a tarantula type my money is on nasty bite and not toxic unless you are allergic.

Mind you considering how my leg reacted to a common or garden orb weaver I'm certainly not inclined to put it to the test.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

So you're the real-life model for Rubeus Hagrid! (At least with regard to seeing dangerous critters as cute and lovable.)

[dewline.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, she probably has very distant ancestors of exactly this sort. Everyone's got a (exo-)skeleton in their family tree somewhere, right?

[keristor.livejournal.com]

The only things I'd be frightened of about K's't'lk are (a) she's way more intelligent than me (although I'd love to kibitz on some of her conversations with Spock; I probably wouldn't understand more than one word in ten or worse (and that's if they were in English) but they'd be wonderful to hear) and (b) she looks fragile (although she's probably a lot tougher than she looks). She wouldn't startle me the way spiders do because she makes noise when she moves, and she's too big to suddenly appear from under a sofa. And she's too socialised to deliberately try to startle people or hurt them.

The main trouble I have with spiders I can see is "How do I transfer it to somewhere safe (where I won't accidentally step on it, for instance) without hurting it?" I'm afraid of picking them up in case they lose a leg or get squashed or something nasty.

[rosmar.livejournal.com]

And I like spiders! (And Shelob, for that matter.) But . . . man. I wouldn't want to be trapped in a room with that thing, y'know?

Thank ye kindly on the icon love. :) Hee to yours in return.

[katerinfg.livejournal.com]

Okay, I didn't even click on the picture link and I'm going to have nightmares (or at least the creepies about lying in bed in the dark) from this post.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

What they need is a good zoo... sounds like the kind of critter that needs trained handlers.

[lunza.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to hang around with a walking set of wind chimes, you know? :)

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Well, I wouldn't know about "real-life", but I like spiders. They do what they do brilliantly. And they can't help acting as their species "job description" requires. (The description of this species as "moody" gives me the chuckles: I can just see it sitting in the corner and sulking / pouting with its lower lip stuck out.)

...Also I knew some tarantulas before I had a chance to get freaked out by them. The South American ones would indeed get very cranky and aggressive. But when you poked them, the brown American desert ones would roll over and play dead. Then, when they thought you'd gone away, they'd very cautiously get up and go hide in a corner: and they definitely had a very put-upon, harassed look.

The most poignant thing I ever saw, though, was a baby tarantula trying (ineffectually) to defend itself. The US tarantulas, it seems, don't usually bite: their preferred mode of defense is to scrape the (irritating) hairs off their abdomens into the nose and eyes of whatever's trying to eat them. I had a baby tarantula try to do this to me. All it had was peach fuzz to work with, though. And when I didn't go away, it then crouched down and made itself as small as it could in the most pitiful and betrayed manner. "But Mommy told me this would work...!" I took myself away in a hurry.

[marmelmm.livejournal.com]

MR. CUDDLES!

http://www.catenamanor.com/comics/05/20050530.html