Look at Our New Pet!

Look what we found in the living room window sill. 

Okay, to be totally honest, we had already lost him from Elijah's room.  I think we may name him Houdini.  To go back a little, earlier this week I was mowing the yard (we finally had some rain and now it is growing again)  when I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye.  A tarantula, an Oklahoma Brown Tarantula.  They are also know as Texas Brown, but I will defer to Oklahoma since that is where we live.  That won't happen often.  Anyway, I got a 1/2 gallon canning jar and put him in.

Fast forward a day.  Jeff comes with a paint can from Armstrong Auditorium.  There is no lid and he wants me to look in it.  "Snake" automatically comes to mind.  Well, it was another tarantula that the painters had found.  I didn't want to put them together so I found an oatmeal container, punched a few holes in the lid and put him in there. 

This was all last Thursday.  Yesterday Elijah comes in and asks if I let the tarantula go.  "No", was my reply.  Somehow the one in the oatmeal container had pushed off the lid.  Now, I am very sure I put in on as tight as it would go.  The last thing I want is a tarantula crawling across my face as I sleep, or falling out of some dirty laundry that is on the floor, not that there is ever dirty laundry on the floor.  "Great!" is all I can think.  All day long I am carefully picking things up.  More for the tarantula than myself.  I really didn't want to injure it.  Yes it would freak me out a little and i really don't care to hold one, but I'm not really scared of them.  Well to make a long story a bit longer, we found him last night.  I looked up as I was ironing clothes and there he was in the windowsill.  This time he is in a jar.

You may have noticed that I have referred to them as "he".  I'm not sure how to tell the difference, but from all that we have read, I am pretty confident that is what they are.  Generally from June-October the males come out looking for mates.  They are usually 5-12 years old by this time (females can live around 30 years) and will die shortly after mating.  They either become lunch or just die like salmon.  It also says they will probably die whether they mate or not so tomorrow we will let them go.  I figure they ought to at least have a chance to reproduce.  Maybe we'll try to get a tarantula at the pet store that we can keep for a long time!

Here are  couple of links to info about the Oklahoma/Texas brown tarantula.  They are supposed to be good pets.

http://mobugs.blogspot.com/2010/01/oklahoma-brown-tarantula.html
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/reptiles/spiders/OklahomaBrownTarantula.php