I didn’t think it was possible for a spider to have a cute name, but Albert is probably the best tarantula name I’ve ever heard. I imagine him having been dorky.
Urgh. Reminds me of the spider that I’ve come to refer to as Big Grey. Big Grey, thank God, lived outside, and I only saw her once, when I was using the hose to water a dry patch near our back gate. Apparently, her burrow was under the concrete by said gate, and the water irritated her, so she ran out and perched on the gate post. I’d say her body was pretty close to golf ball size, and her legs were very long and tapered toward the ends, but with legs extended she was probably 3 and a half inches long. She looked quite a bit like this picture.
I’ve never seen her again, which is fine by me. I hope she and her progeny have moved on.
Remind me sometime to tell you about the two-inch spider I saw leaping across the tops of the already-cut grass while I was mowing the lawn.
Individually, the words “great,” “starter,” and “pets” have meaning, but together? Does not compute. Especially when it is *spiders *we’re talking about here.
Snicks, arachnophobe extraordinaire.
“[on 17] …you mean it gets worse?!”
Years ago my wife and I were en route to Monterey in November, and decided to take a byway. We left highway 101 at Greenfield and took a winding two-lane road through Carmel Valley and didn’t see another car going either direction. Farms, ranches and eerily quiet country.
As we got closer to the coast we encountered tarantulas basking in the road, oblivious to our car. As I recall, they were kind of reddish in color. We probably saw a half dozen of them within a mile or so.
That was a great trip. We also saw wild turkeys and a small herd of deer, but the tarantulas were the real show-stoppers.