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.