You’ll find our curly hair tarantula display downstairs in the Tropical House.
Curly hair tarantulas are ground-dwelling, burrowing spiders native to Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They can usually be found in tropical scrubland, either around the base of large trees, near rivers, or in patches of cleared rainforest.
As their name suggests, curly hair tarantulas are covered in long, curly bristles that cover their torsos and legs. They have round bodies and their leg span can measure up to 15cm.
They are nocturnal hunters and prey on insects and small vertebrates, including centipedes and millipedes.
Interesting facts!
- Although they are venomous, the bite of a tarantula like this is no more dangerous than a bee sting – unless you’re a grasshopper that is!
- Curly hair tarantulas have a defence mechanism of urticating hairs, which are finely barbed and can cause irritation when they come into contact with the skin, eyes or nose of potential predators. Tarantulas can kick these hairs off, creating a cloud of irritants if they feel threatened.
- They have an area at the end of each leg that is sensitive to smell, taste and vibration, which they use to detect prey.
Conservation
Curly hair tarantulas have not been evaluated by The International Union for Conservation of Nature, therefore we don’t know its status in the wild. However, it is very likely that curly hair tarantulas are threatened by habitat loss due to factors such climate change, flooding and deforestation.
