A Desert Tarantula! We found this guy trapped in the parking lot area due to the curb height so Steve used a box to get him on safe ground.
North American tarantulas are not as scary as you might think! Food for these spiders includes insects, lizards & small animals. According to Audubon's Insects & Spiders field guide: "These spiders are reluctant to attack people. Usually the venom is no more poisonous than that of bees." This tarantula moved quite slowly and seemed quite unperturbed even though we moved him. (gently of course)
Also - if you are interested in some of the arthropod IDs from our last post click here.
Ooo, I might run if I see one of these:)
ReplyDelete