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Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 22:50:55 -0400
From: Judy Johnson <jjohnson@asrr.arsusda.gov>
Subject: Tarantulas

The following are two posts related to "The Vibrating Cactus". The first was in response to a story in which a woman came in to find her new cactus (bought from a Korean import shop) torn up and some "tarantulas" wandering around in the house. The second was a pretty standard retelling of the tale

[begin post]

There are a few questions I would like to ask: 1) Where does your friend live?
2) What time of the year did this occur? 3) What exactly was the origin of the "cactus"? Did it come from Korea? 4) Are her grown children prone to practical jokes? 5) Did she have the "tarantulas" identified by a reliable party, and were they considered exotic or native?

North American tarantulas are exclusively ground-dwellers; they live in burrows that they dig themselves or in existing holes (our California foothill tarantulas seem to prefer gopher holes.) They do not nest in plants, and they are not gregarious (only one spider per burrow.) During certain times of the year, adult (sexually mature) male tarantulas may be seen cruising for tarantula "chicks", that is, they are looking for love in all the right burrows. The normal breeding season for most US species is late summer to late fall. In some parts of the southwest, scores of wandering, horny male tarantulas can become a down-right nuisance. Is it possible that your friend just had a couple of love-starved male tarantulas wander in her house, coincidental to her cat ripping up the new plant?

There are arboreal tarantulas from Asia and South/Central America. There are other non-tarantula spiders that may also take up residence in a plant. (BTW, could it have been a bromeliad instead of a cactus?) Some of the arboreal tarantulas are more communal than US species. So, yes, its possible that some stowed away in a plant. If that were what happened to your friend, I would suggest that some other house-pet (well, tarantulas are definitely considered house-pets among my circle of friends) tore open the cactus to get at whatever was making it move, and chased out the stow-aways. However, I find that pretty far-fetched.

How about this scenario?
First "adult" child: Did you read about the "Vibrating Cactus" urban legend? Second "adult" child: Yeah, did you notice all the tarantulas wandering around outside?
FAC: Ya know, Mom just bought a cactus...

Without an accurate ID of the offending arachnids (if they did indeed exist), anything is conjecture.

[begin second post]

bradham@panix.com (Bo Bradham) wrote:

[snipella]

>> [Spiders!]

>What I like about this new telling is that the person with the
>cactus called the store. In the canonical version they call 911,
>and the 911 operator tells them to get out of the house. A
>moonlighting spider-ologist, no doubt. At least by having them
>call the store there is a scintilla of believablity.

I checked TMP and the first telling of the story uses Marks and Spencer as the store. The FOAF is said to call M & S directly when their yucca begins to squeak. My first encounter with the story had the victim call 911, however, and no store was named directly.

What I find amusing about the story is that a bunch of newly-hatched tarantulas are capable of causing either movement or noise within the plant. Baby tarantulas are reeeeeeeally small, the entire egg sac of most desert-type tarantulas is probably less than an ounce in weight.

Two other tarantula-related points:

1. Most tarantulas are good mothers, tending their egg sacs until the babies hatch out. It would therefore be unlikely to find hatching spiderlings without the mama.
2. Tarantulas are NOT DEADLY, especially newly-hatched spiderlings. (Although they almost caused the divorce of a friend of mine when he had a mass escape of about 100 baby pink-toe tarantulas..."But Honey, they're harmless and soooo CUTE.")

Judy "so many tarantulas, so little time" Johnson