Amazing Animal Fact: Tarantula

In writing my novel, Acea and the Animal Kingdom, one animal which I spent hours and hours researching was the tarantula. Ever spent hours looking at pictures of spiders? For myself, who is genuinely frightened by spiders, researching tarantulas was not much fun!

BUT I learned alot of interesting and amazing things about tarantulas which I did not know before.  These include:

• Tarantulas were on the earth back in the time of the dinosaurs. In fact, it's even thought that tarantulas existed before the dinosaur age! (The oldest discovered tarantula fossile is from the Lower Triassic period of 235-240 million years ago.)
• Tarantulas have fangs. Do you know where they're at? I dare you to search for pictures of tarantula fangs to find out!
• Tarantulas kick hairs off of their abdomen, called Urticating hairs, which are lethal to some small animals and rodents. To humans, these hairs can cause severe itching and rashing. Tarantulas have developed these urticating hairs over time, as a form of evolution to defend themselves from predators.

There are many more amazing facts that I learned from my research. But I'll leave those for another day. Though tarantulas are normally scary to many poeple, they are definitely one of the amazing animals in the world!