Harry the Tarantula

Back home in Idaho we have our share of venomous insects, but I had only seen pictures and heard stories of the legendary tarantula. I had never actually encountered one, but this all changed when I moved to the Dominican Republic and began teaching math and biology in Santiago Christian School.

Last week just before school started one morning, an attractive Dominican upper classman, whom I did not know, strode into my room with a round metal cookie tin which she held carefully in front of her. I noticed that the lid had several triangular holes punched in the top, obviously the work of a beer can opener. Scotch tape around the lid’s circumference held the lid on tightly.

“I heard that since you teach biology you might have use for this,” she began.

“What is it?” I asked hesitantly.

“Oh, it’s just a tarantula,” she responded casually. “I found it in my yard last night. If you can’t use him, kill him. I don’t care. I just didn’t want him around my house.” Then she turned and left with a last comment over her shoulder, “I think they eat lizards.”

My first period class was starting in a few minutes so I carefully placed the cookie tin on my desk out of the way of traffic and taught class until my prep period which was just before noon that day. Lurking in the back of my mind while I was teaching was the problem of how I was going to transfer the spider from the cookie tin to a quart canning jar … the largest transparent container I could find in my room. By my prep period I had concluded that I could make a funnel out of paper the same size as the mouth of the cookie tin and then tape the narrow end to the quart jar. All I could see in my mind was the newspaper headlines “Biology teacher at Christian School Dies of Spider Bite.” At this point I hadn’t had time to surf the Internet to find out that in the Dominican Republic the bite of a tarantula (also called “cacatas”) is rarely fatal.

With no one in the room I attached the funnel and attempted the transfer. I turned the tin upside down … and nothing came out. Wondering if this may have been some elaborate practical joke, I lifted the tin up. Suddenly the spider dropped out, missed the funnel, and landed on the table about a foot in front of me.

This is the first time I had ever seen a real tarantula. I had heard that they could jump several feet to attack and that their bite was fatal. Although I learned later that this isn’t true, my heart reacted as though it were true. This spider with its legs was as big as my right hand with my fingers spread out. It was covered with brown hair that made it look fuzzy, but not a comfortable teddy bear kind of fuzzy, if you know what I mean. This was a truly menacing sight … you know, the stuff nightmares are made of.

With the reflexes of a panicked man I threw the tin over the spider before he could get his bearings. With my heart still racing I dragged the tin to the side of the table until he dropped into the paper funnel and into the jar. With a sigh of relief I perched the jar on the table in front of the room to provide a teachable moment for the afternoon classes.

By the reactions of my students one would think they had never seen a tarantula either. And I suppose that most of them had never been around one so up-close and personal. Besides the normal questions of, “Ew, what is that?” or “Wher’d you get that?” the first thing each period wanted to know is what I had I named him. Without a second thought I affectionately dubbed him Harry, and announced that he was part of my new plan for classroom discipline.

Eventually my colleague in the next room who teaches the advanced biology class loaned me a small vacated terrarium with a lid, so for the next couple of weeks Harry had a fairly comfortable home. However, at my age I was not about to crawl around outside on my hands and knees looking for lizards to feed him, so I announced the dilemma to my classes. With many promises and several stories about encounters with lizards and spiders I was quickly assured that Harry would be well fed.

After a week with no food I told my classes I would have to let Harry loose if I didn’t get some food. One girl said she saw a lizard but by the time she went inside to tell her maid to catch it, it was gone. (Evidently household maids do more than clean the house and cook meals in this country.)

A freshman boy excitedly brought me two baby geckos in an empty pop bottle which we promptly dumped in front of Harry. Although one of the geckos was gone the next morning, it didn’t produce the observable feeding frenzy that they hoped to see. Added to that, I wouldn’t give in to their demands to give extra credit for spider victims, so I knew I would have to give up Harry.

My colleague who teaches physical science agreed to adopt him, so my room is now void of poisonous insects. It will be a while before I forget this first encounter with a “Harry” tarantula.