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Wild Kingdom Laka is a female Spider ball python (Python regalis). She is named for the hula goddess. I dance with her, as I do with all my snakes. Ismail (God hears) is a male Pastel ball python (Python regalis). Hadi (guide on the right path) is a Mojave ball python (Python regalis). Ahmed (praiseworthy) is a cornsnake. Naguib (of noble descent) is a cornsnake named for my favorite author, Nobel prizewinner Naguib Mahfouz. My first pet in my adult life was a pinktoe tarantula named Francis. He passed away last summer of old age. After Francis entered my life, I acquired more tarantulas, then my German Shepherd Dog Eldar (who is named for the first elves to make the crossing to Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings, "the people of the stars") whom I began to train as my hearing dog, using a book called Lend Me an Ear. Now, Eldar finds the phone for me, tells me when the tea kettle whistles and alerts me to traffic when I’m out walking or running. Next came Gudrun (named for the heroine of The Saga of the Volsungs), who shares a grandmother with Eldar. Gudrun is a pet, but I train her in obedience. Gudrun’s sister Splenda, who is black and tan rather than sable like Gudrun, earned an Award of Merit at the Westminster Kennel Club Show in 2007. Eldar and Gudrun come from Oak Ridge German Shepherd Dogs in Norwood, Colorado. In 2005, I bought my first snake, Ahmed. Now, I have seven tarantulas, five snakes and my two German Shepherds, and the Wild Kingdom, as we call my rustic home, sometimes feels like a small zoo. I own no television, far preferring to spend time with my animals. Snakes and tarantulas shed and forget; the shed skin or the exoskeleton is not the animal. It is gone, and the animal is different afterwards. When I dance with my snakes, they teach my limbs to move, and I try to listen with my skin and to every ripple. They are all muscle, sinuous and inherently athletic, like many wild animals. In fall of 2007, three of my tarantulas spent time in the classroom of the local fourth-and-fifth graders. Nathaniel Hoskin, one of the students, wrote the following essay after watching Marco, a Haitian brown (Phormictopus cancerides) tarantula, eat crickets.
Marco vs. Three Crickets On Friday, November 9, 2007, the fourth grade tarantula killed three crickets in roughly one hour! Here is how it happened. To begin, Marco had to kill the crickets and he did that by first pouncing on them and then holding them with his pediapalps so that he could paralyze them with his venom-filled fangs. After he paralyzed the crickets he had to eat them instead of leaving them around, and this is how he did it. He injected digestive chemicals into the crickets so that his sensitive digestive system would let the food through. After he had done that he spun a fine sheet of silk on the ground and ate them all at once. I was so nauseous from the smell that by the time I recovered Marco already had the first cricket impaled on his fangs! While Marco had his feast the other tarantula had been fed, too. But she made it seem like she didn’t care that she was being fed. I am easily impressed, especially by tarantulas, but nothing in my entire life has made me feel so joyful. To me, many animals are fascinating, but none fascinated me as much as tarantulas do. Tarantulas and spiders will always fascinate me . . . for they are full of wonder now matter where they appear. Lucy is a Togo Starburst (Heteroscodra maculata)tarantula. She was wild-caught in Africa and has lived with me for five years. Santiago is a Panama Blond (Psalmopoeus pulcher) tarantula. Jerome is a French Guianan Bluefang (Ephebopus cyanognathus) tarantula. Joan Wilder and Dolores are Columbian Bluebloom (Pamphobeteus nigricolor) Tarantulas. Amata is a Brazilian Red and white (Nhandu chromatus). ~The spiders pictured here are examples of the species rather than photos of my spiders. Tarantulas (and ball pythons, for that matter) are reclusive, and I don’t disturb mine for photo shoots. These beautiful photos are used with the permission of Swift Invertebrates (www.swiftinvert.com).
I sometimes spin dog hair into yarn. In the photo below, Gudrun is wearing a scarf of
yarn handspun from the fur of her friend Sally, a lead sled dog.
The scarf is trimmed with yarn from Eldar’s and Gudrun’s hair. |
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