Today I got my Christmas present from Nancy, a young Brazilian Salmon Pink Bird-eating Tarantula. It is small now, but can grow to over 12 inches across. How did Tarantulas get their name?
Answer:
The original tarantula was a kind of wolf spider found in Southern Italy. It was thought that the spider was extremely venomous, and that if you were bitten, your only chance was to perform a lively dance called the Tarantella. Since the Roman senate had outlawed that kind of dancing, there is a strong suspicion that supposed spider bites were an easy excuse for dancing. When explorers came to the New World, they called the large, fuzzy spiders tarantulas. Now, the name is a generic term for any large, fuzzy spider, including several different families.
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