4 things we learned at 'Tarantulas: Alive and Up Close'
When you write about science for a living, you get into some pretty gross and/or creepy stuff. But all the gore and weirdness doesn't bother me. In fact, it's part of the reason I got into this line of work. There's one place I draw the line, though.
When you write about science for a living, you get into some pretty gross and/or creepy stuff. But all the gore and weirdness doesn't bother me. In fact, it's part of the reason I got into this line of work. There's one place I draw the line, though.
Spiders.
Don't like them. No, really, I get my wife to kill them for me. I've never liked them and never will _ or so I thought, until the Academy of Natural Sciences' new exhibit made me see them in a different light. "Tarantulas: Alive and Up Close" opens Saturday, and I figured if anyone could change my mind about spiders, it would be the Academy.
So I gave them a challenge: walk me through the exhibit and teach me enough cool things about tarantulas to make me come around on them. Here's what I learned.
1. They're not really dangerous, just typecast
"Their size, that's what gets people most of the time," says the Academy's insect expert, Karen Verderame. "That's why they've become so popular in sci-fi and horror movies."
Verderame says there's some irony there, though. The reason they keep getting used in scary movies is because they're not threatening or dangerous, but actually pretty docile and easy to work with. "They're just playing the role, because they're big, they're hairy and they're showy," she says. "They're method actors. They're playing a part. And they're typecast."
2. They provide free services
Spiders are nature's exterminators, feasting on bugs that would otherwise pester us. And they do it for free. Tarantulas are especially important here. "Because these are sizable spiders, they're not only exterminating things like crickets and whatnot. They're getting rodents and they're getting snakes," Verderame says. "If you take away those big scary spiders, you're gonna start seeing a huge flux in population of mice and lots of insects, and it will really throw that world out of balance."
3. They're not gonna bite you
Horror movies would have us believe that tarantulas only goal in life is to bite people, but really, this is more trouble than it's worth for them. "Because they're big spiders, in order to bite, they have to lift up their front and bring their teeth back down," Verderame says. "It's a whole production, and they put themselves in more danger, so they only want to do that as a last resort. To get bitten by one of these species, you probably deserve it. You really have to aggravate them."
4. They're kind of cuddly
Tarantulas can't see very well. That's why they're covered in hair. "Those hairs are basically their fingers, or like a cat's whiskers," Verderame says. "They're sensory, they're helping them feel their way around."
While they look like they might be bristly and feel kind of gross, Verderame says the hair is fuzzy and feels a lot like velvet. She tells me this as she's psyching me up to hold one of the Academy's resident tarantulas, Charlotte. When Charlotte crawls into my hand, she is indeed soft, velvety and super chill about being handled. She's even almost kind of cute.
Tarantulas: Alive and Up Close
Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
January 30-May 30, $5, $3 for members. .