Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/20/how-domesticated-tarantulas-ar.html
…
3 Likes
At one of the unis I worked, they had a zoo. Not a big one, nor any larger animals. However, quite a number.
That Uni is closed. All non-essential visits are explicitly forbidden. I wonder how the zoo’s curator now manages. He might have taken some home, as well. Axolotls, I would definitely take myself…
7 Likes
I have a friend that is a big Axolotl aficionado, last i checked the pair she had were successful in getting them to mate and she had no idea what to do with all the offspring 
As far as other creatures go i had an ex that liked reptiles and insects, it was particularly interesting seeing a tarantula’s daily behavior from up close.
9 Likes
That picture would make a great Zoom background. So cute! “Hey, fella, what happened to your upper right eye? Looks like it got scratched.”
5 Likes
I’ve found myself in the opposite position. Animal facilities was deemed “mission critical” but with the greatly reduced research being conducted now my grasshopper colony has extra vet techs looking after them attentitively.
The idea of bringing home the ~1000 grasshoppers to my living room and waking up to the feel of being in a swarm would be kind of terrifying – and I really like the little critters
12 Likes
So when the university gave the go ahead to bring home animals that were not at risk of escaping into the wild and harming the environment, [Todd] Waters brought the [arthropod] zoo [at the University of Maryland] home with him
As an alum, I would just like to say, go Terps!
5 Likes
That’s wild!
If you don’t mind my asking (and it isn’t classified in some way), what kind of work are you doing that involves the grasshoppers?
(I am interested in Entomology, but never had more than an undergrad course in the subject)
2 Likes
There’s a scene in one of the Little House on the Prairie books where there is a locust swarm, but they are not flying, they are walking; millions of them. They walk over anything and everyone in their path, including the baby who is covered in walking insects.
2 Likes
Coincidentally this reminded me of an ep of Futility Closet where they cover the story of the last locust migration in the US before they were accidentally wiped out
3 Likes
No definitely not classified. I’m a neurobiologist studying visual processing and escape behavior. Much of what is known about motion vision has come from studying insects because they accomplish the same functions with much fewer neurons. Grasshoppers have one single neuron for each eye that takes info from every photoreceptor and determines whether there is something coming at them that needs to be escaped. I’m slowly figuring out how the system works
They only fly as adults (~8 weeks old). After the adults of a swarm pass through, the eggs will hatch and leave behind millions of little hoppers that eat everything until they too grow wings and can fly on
12 Likes
That is fascinating stuff! I would have guessed their visual systems would be more complex with the compound eyes. Wow! Surprised and interested to read more on the subject.
3 Likes
Well, carrying a tarantula into the store may be a good strategy for enforcing social distancing.
10 Likes
Yessir, that works for me! I’ll be across the street until tarantula-toting shopper leaves.
Spiders elicit a big ol’ “Hells No!” from me.
2 Likes
“Has anyone seen my pet tarantula!”
3 Likes
My daughter used to say- Too many grasshoppers? Need more tarantulas.
3 Likes
That would have been the right time period; late 1870’s-early 1880’s. Maybe they were grasshoppers rather than locusts; it’s been a very long time since I read the books.
3 Likes
That lead photo is so cute! I like tarantulas, despite never having had one. I guess cause they furry. Once saw a demo at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, of putting dinner (a cricket?) down on the floor, a good six feet away from a tarantula. Boy, they move fast. Cricket was gone in a flash.
2 Likes
I was in the subway once in Toronto when a guy was walking around with one on his hand, and he certainly had no problem with people crowding him.
2 Likes
Tarantulas are very cool creatures, they’re undeservedly seen as angry predators when the vast majority of them are relatively mild mannered and will leave people alone. I don’t think i could handle one but i have a lot of appreciation for them 
3 Likes
The compound eye simplifies things. Each facet (ommatidium) of the compound eye has 8 photoreceptors that see a small region of the world and transmit visual info to a nicely contained group of neurons that process inputs just to that facet. Our eye has a much less structured arrangement that makes things a little harder to figure out
locusts are a subset of grasshoppers that form swarms. Either term works for the little house on the prairie swarm which would have been the rocky mountain locust (a type of grasshopper)
5 Likes
