Last night, like most nights, I came home from playing with my horses. It was a bit late (I’d been watching the moon rise) and it was quite dark….
Upon my arrival I am greeted at the door by my dog Orion, wildly wagging his tail as he usually does when I come home. My other dog, Willow, however, doesn’t come to greet me. “That’s odd,” I think, and so I look around for her.
She’s standing in our hallway, and her tail is wagging wildly, but she’s not facing me. She’s turning her head around to look at me and then back to stare at a a big black splotch on the floor, wiggling and waggling as she’s standing over it, but with a certain nervous, “uuuuuuhhhhh, mommmm?” tension. (Reminding me of the time that my tough cats were all lying on my crumpled harp cover on the floor in Kentucky — when I lifted it up, there were three baby chimney swifts underneath there. Apparently they were aggressive enough, even though they couldn’t fly and could barely see, that the cats felt it necessary to throw the harp cover over them and then sit on it until reinforcements arrived…)
I look to see what she’s responding to and see the big black splotch. From standing height, with no glasses, it looks like a pile of Willow fur, but I don’t think she’s likely to be focused on hair balls as she is such a conscientious, regular creator of such.
So I crouch down to peer at the big black splotch, which focuses in my eyeballs as this:
Yup, I’m staring at a tarantula in my hallway. On my elegant oriental rug. He’s all hunched up and I’m not sure who’s more freaked out. Even hunched up, he’s the size of lemon…
I run off and get a glass and piece of cardboard, capture him in the glass, slide the cardboard underneath and get him contained.
I’m now trying to get out of the house and out the back gate without him getting loose, the dogs helping, and him (heaven help me) crawling on me, so I’m running, with the cardboard held underneath and my chin holding the glass down on the cardboard so I can open doors and gates, going out the front door so I can come in the side gate so I can outwit the dogs…
We get to the bike path without incident and I let him go. He’s dazed for a moment, still, and then starts to scuttle. Towards me and the house.
I have a bit of a thing about spiders. Especially big, hairy spiders. This dates from a traumatic experience at a camp in Pennsylvania a billion years ago when an overzealous counselor poked a fairly large wolf spider who was doing his best impression of a dead guy in the middle of the road and this inspired him to run to me and up the inside of the long skirt I was so stylishly wearing. I have not been the same since.
So, with pride, I can say that as this big, hairy tarantula runs towards me:
I refrain from a) shrieking b) leaping into the air c) running away as fast as I can.
And there is, as in the case of a large spider who actually ran across water towards me on a pond while in college (me, not the spider), no friend to throw in front of me as I attempt to get away (as I think about it, this is perhaps when my friendship with her began to feel strained…).
Remember, it’s dark out, with a lovely full moon, but it’s still dark and I can only tell where he is because he’s a darker big black splotch that’s moving. Towards me.
Impressed with my courage, I gently urge him with the cardboard away from the house. Then I hear dogs (who’ve now figured out where I am), so I trip lightly back into the yard and slam the gate shut before they can investigate.
A little while later, the dogs decide they need desperately to go for their evening stroll, and I go out, feeling just a TAD buggy… and waving a large flashlight. (All the better to see you with…and bonk you with…my dear)… I’m really not into spider violence, but I do want to be prepared. It feels rather like being a member of the Federation of Planets — I come in peace, but I come armed for my protection.
And I find the little darling steadily moving towards the house again. He has not taken this opportunity to disappear into the wilds — apparently he thinks that our house and garden are prime real estate.
So, in a burst of decisiveness, I turn on my heel, call the dogs, go inside, and go to bed. He was not in sight this morning.
But I am wearing shoes. Always. Outside, inside, in the shower…
—
A bit later, after more digging online, I now think that it wasn’t actually a true California tarantula (which I’ve also seen, but never in my house), but instead a Calisoga longitarsis, or “Funnel Tarantula,” which is related to tarantulas, but not a true tarantula.
“Whew!” think I, giggling a little at my neuroses about spiders and assuming anything that is large and hairy is a tarantula. Until I read that California tarantulas are actually quite docile and can be picked up safely, and these spiders are really aggressive.
“This is a fierce ground-dwelling spider that occasionally invades homes in hilly areas. The Insect Hotline at the University of California at Berkeley receives numerous calls from residents in Oakland, Berkeley and Marin County. The spider becomes a problem when it takes up residence in shoes and umbrellas left by doors. One Calisoga bit a 7-year old girl. She described the bit as feeling like stickers. An 80 year-old woman bitten while collecting leaves described the spider’s bite to be like being hit with a hammer. The spider’s fangs penetrated her work gloves.”
Oh, great. Now I can NEVER take my shoes off, as they might have Calisogas in them when I put them back on…
{ 8 comments }
Oh man, I can relate! If it had been me you would have heard my shriek from one end of the valley to the other… so brave how you scooped him/her up so sweetly…if he reapears it might be because he’s thirsty — my theory for all wild things that venture into the house or yard.
My Indonesian dad laughs at our fear of tarantulas. He used to tease us kids by scooping them up in his hat and then chase us around the property before taking them out into the bushes. He claims that when he was a kid he kept them as “pets.”
And thanks a milion for the educational ending!
From here on I will be on the alert to see if it is a “Funnel Tarantula, which is related to tarantulas, but not a true tarantula.”
I did not know this!
“… I read that California tarantulas are actually quite docile and can be picked up safely, and these spiders are really aggressive…”
spiders are the predators of the insect world…. there are no vegetarian spiders…. many of them have six or eight eyes, but they don’t see too well except close up….
in ojai it’s best to feel friendly towards spiders, because they are so plentiful…. when they come indoors it’s always best to capture them as Leigh did and carry them ouside…
if you can overcome your fear of spiders they are remarkably beautiful (in their own way, of course…..)
Every creature loves it’s life as much as you do.
For this reason you must carefully carry all spiders outside.
Every creature loves ITS life as much as you do!
Thanks for the comments, all!
I’m with you — I’m a dedicated carrier of spiders outside (though I must admit I am not merciful with black widows — I watched a friend’s house get infested and that was enough to get me aggressive with them).
But everyone else, I say live and let live.
And I agree, David, spiders are really beautiful! This guy, even in my gulping fear, was pretty amazing as he felt the glass with his front feet, trying to figure out what this weird substance was that had trapped him.
I actually love orb weaver spiders — there are lots this year in our garden — in my wanderings today looking at information about spiders on line, I read in a UC Davis extension piece that all of the orb weavers we see in those amazing webs are females — they are in particular hunt for insects so they’ve got enough fuel to produce egg sacs.
By the end of the summer, they are gray and hoary — I guess I should have known they were crone spiders!
How cool is that?
Yikes Leigh! I was hoping that it was indeed a tarantula, a non aggressive beauty. We had one of these sitting on our porch light one evening and admired him as such. To now learn that this enormous hairy creature wasn’t a docile tarantula and rather and distant aggressive cousin makes me very very paranoid. Wonder what eats this funnel tarantula, owls? Maybe time to invest in owl boxes. I believe we should live and let live all walks of life, but I am all for increasing the predator/prey ratio to let they population control itself naturally, is that wrong?
We always see at least a couple of tarantulas in our yard every August. Only once did we have one inside the house. They are amazing creatures and all of mine have been very sweet and docile….so I guess they are truly tarantulas. I glad to hear that everyone is gentle with them even though some people say they are afraid. All these guys have a right to life same as us. And I think they are all guys. I read somewhere that the male comes out of his “burrow” (in August) and walks and walks for miles until he finds a mate. The females stay in the ground until the male finds them. ummm.
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