They're hunting spiders, like wolf spiders. They run their prey down. They live in dens and holes.
There was a female living in a hole in the wall at the Museum of Natural History in NY for like 10 years that used to come out to beg people for food, although that was fairly useless as most visitors to museums don't carry crickets, roaches, or live mice with them. But the staff fed her so she generalized it to all humans being possible donators of food.
I don't know how she got there as they are not native to NY. Someone's lost pet, probably. People who own them sometimes stick them in a pocket and carry them around. Personally, that makes my skin crawl a bit, even if I have known some very beautiful and personable pet tarantulas, but to each his or her own.
Well, tarantulas do still have the ability to spin silk, and can make a sort of "nest" out of it given time - mine used to do it all over the gravel in their tanks, and then it'd be a bitch to clean out because it'd also involve stirring up all the damn hair they shed, and I'd itch for days.
But in the ceiling? Now, I'm not saying they couldn't get their in the first place - I've seen the suckers climb straight up the glass sides of tanks (which as I'm sure you know is why you always ALWAYS have a locking top on a spider's tank)... but spinning an actual web there? Not so much.
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Tarantulas Take Over New York Museum
Date: 2007-08-03 10:00 pm (UTC)There was a female living in a hole in the wall at the Museum of Natural History in NY for like 10 years that used to come out to beg people for food, although that was fairly useless as most visitors to museums don't carry crickets, roaches, or live mice with them. But the staff fed her so she generalized it to all humans being possible donators of food.
I don't know how she got there as they are not native to NY. Someone's lost pet, probably. People who own them sometimes stick them in a pocket and carry them around. Personally, that makes my skin crawl a bit, even if I have known some very beautiful and personable pet tarantulas, but to each his or her own.
Re: Tarantulas Take Over New York Museum
Date: 2007-08-03 10:06 pm (UTC)But in the ceiling? Now, I'm not saying they couldn't get their in the first place - I've seen the suckers climb straight up the glass sides of tanks (which as I'm sure you know is why you always ALWAYS have a locking top on a spider's tank)... but spinning an actual web there? Not so much.
Re: rant
Date: 2007-08-03 11:01 pm (UTC)