Tarantula
A female can live twenty five years or more while a male rarely reaches ten. Most of the day is spent sitting still, and the hairs are the defence, not the fangs.
Photo by Pratik Jain, CC BY-SA 4.0
Overview
A tarantula is a twenty five year commitment if you buy a female and a ten year one at most if you buy a male. Mexican red knees, the species most people picture, live 25 to 30 years as females while males rarely pass 10, and a male stops moulting altogether once he matures at four or five.
The defence is the hairs, not the fangs. A New World tarantula that is unhappy turns its abdomen toward the problem and kicks off a cloud of barbed hairs that lodge in skin and raise a rash, and that can do serious damage in an eye. The bite exists, and for the common pet species it gets compared to a bee or wasp sting, but it is the second thing the animal reaches for.
Temperament
Mostly it sits there. That is the honest description and it is why they suit some people and bore others: a tarantula spends the day in or beside its burrow, comes out at night, and eats about once a week.
Handling is a running argument in the hobby and the practical answer is not to. The hairs are the everyday nuisance, and a spider that falls from hand height can split its abdomen open, which it does not recover from. Most keepers move theirs with a catch cup and a piece of card.
Care and grooming
Two or three crickets a week for a spider of about three to four centimetres in body length, scaled up from there, and a water dish it can reach. Uneaten prey comes out.
Everything stops when it moults. A tarantula lies on its back for hours, which looks exactly like a dead spider, and it must not be touched or fed while it is like that. Wait seven to ten days after a moult before offering food again, because the fangs harden last. Half grown spiders moult two or three times a year, and spiderlings do it every couple of weeks for their first four months.
Living and exercise
Wide and low for a ground dweller. A tank around 25 by 20 by 20 centimetres suits a medium sized species, and the modest height is deliberate, since a terrestrial tarantula that climbs the glass and falls can rupture its abdomen.
Substrate deep enough to burrow into, five centimetres at minimum and up to fifteen for a species that really digs, with cork or bark to hide under. Humidity matters most around a moult: let it fall too low and the spider gets stuck in the old skin, and that is the usual way a healthy looking tarantula is lost.
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