My salary.

Email a buddy to lend me $20 and leave it somewhere where I can pick it up.

Opening the terrarium was fine, lifting the little log hut thingy and messing up the web was a gamble.

Mine just loved to extend their web to include the door.

Feeding those took some real preperation. We first had to seal the room (closing an gaps at the doors/windows) as well as blocking all corners and cranies where they could potentially hide.

Then we stripped. Not kidding.

The first time feeding them one of them ran up my brothers arm and straight into his shirt. It was an absolute pain to get it out of there (and he totally got bitten in the process). From then on we’d take off all loose clothing when opening their enclosures. So yeah, just socks and tight fitting boxer briefs.

Pretty sure only one of these has his picture on posters and t-shirts owned by teenagers all over the world. But maybe Luigi will get there some day.

One of the first phones I ever saw was my cousins nokia 3110 … and I just thought it was the prettiest thing ever. But by the time I got to have my own phone it was already pretty outdated so I never got one.

I think it’s most obvious when you’re trying to handle a spider (letting it walk on people, which I generally don’t recommend anymore, but we we’re young).

We had several Brachypelma hamorii, which are generally quite docil but one of them was especially chill. You could just gently push her around and she’d walk whereever you’d guide her.

I knew I should have looked it up.

Never encountered one.

Some genera/species are naturally docile but you can sometimes have an individual that doesn’t conform to that. Or you can have a notoriously defensive kind, but one individual is just really chill.

And no, I don’t think you can train them or force those “personalities”. It just happens by chance. Or by some mechanism to complex for me to understand.

I don’t know what you mean :)

I love Bill Bailey. I guess Insect Nation? I have to revisit the lyrics.

edit: not the guy you’re replying to, but yes, that must be the reference!

I have kept a bunch of invertebrates (spiders) from the same species and yes, they do have “personality” in the sense that indivduals do react differently to the same or at least a very similar situation. Consistently.

They show behavior that can’t be explained by simple automatisms

This has been long debunked and is also obvious to anyone that even dabbled in Entomology or adjacent fields. There are certainly very complex behaviors at work. But if it qualifies as sentient is a philosophical debate and not one of arachnology.

Sorry about that. Jumping spiders are pretty much as cute as it gets with spiders. But Portia isn’t a looker amongst them. Have this one:

But would the insects want to side with them?

It’s really the other way around. You get to learn the personality of the spiders (and may become fond of them).

But yeah, some species are just like that. We had a bunch of Pterinochilus murinus or “OBTs” (orange bamboo tarantula … but also orange bitey thing). They are nasty. Always on edge, no chill. Just feeding them was a pain because you had to open the enclosure and they would come at you.

You’re just firing off the spider questions today.

My brother had had some till a while ago, but they don’t live that long. He had two of the American species ones and a redback. They are really chill spiders and don’t handle differently than any other local Theridiid spider. They are quite boring, really.

You don’t really interact with them, they setup their web and then they’ll just stay there till they die of old age (around 2 years).

Tarantulas are insects

You wanna fight?

They have the nervous system of a guitar amplifier.

I recommend this video. You can do amazing things with the nervous system of a guitar amplifier, it turns out.