Introducing Fluffy

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, this weekend, Joel and I went out to a rural area of Southern California to pick up a snake rack from a friends house.

We had gotten there late, so the rack was outside waiting for us, and our friend was gone.

To get there, we drove thru a dusty dirt road and out to the boonies. 

We loaded up the rack into the truck, and got ready to leave.

Suddenly, in the driveway, something started moving. Maybe it was moving before and I just didn't notice it, but Joel got really excited.

"Get a cup, Heather... There's one in the back seat" He said.

I ran to get the cup, cause I didn't really want to be near what he was interested in picking up.

What was it that was crawling so delicately across the driveway pavement?

Fluffy, of course.

We took it home, made it a little place to stay, and now we are trying to identify what kind of Tarantula it is. So far, I've been told it is an Aphonopelma spp and more than likely a female. I'm hoping it's a female, as I have been told males tend to die pretty quickly after becoming mature.

Fluffy is around three inches long, and looks very healthy. In the first 24 hours of being in our house, it has already created a burrow and started webbing.

Now as anyone who knows me well can tell you, I am NOT a Spider fan.  I have a mild to moderate case of Arachnophobia that tends to manifest itself around larger spiders. Fluffy is a larger spider.

But it does fascinate me. It is a wild caught local specimen that I did look up about, and there are no laws against collecting invertebrate species in California other than on Federal Land.

So, apparently we are keeping Fluffy. Joel has always wanted a Tarantula, and this one just fell into our laps.

So kudos to you, Joel, for being able to con your way into owning a Spider in the house, and kudos to me for being able to put up with it. I did name it though.

I will more than likely not hold it, but I will watch it and learn from it. It is very interesting to say the least.

So, add another species of critter to the list of what we have. Tarantula, 0.0.1

Hopefully there will be more tales of Fluffy soon.

Have a fantastic day, my friends.