Dom Davis (The Blog)

The Zozo has a quantity (I want to say six, but it could be 7) of arachnids, specifically tarantulas that she keeps at home. I remain mostly ambivalent about these house guests as, despite being anathema, they are in individual holding cells, which are placed into a locked spider containment unit in the living room. Besides, unlike your common or garden spider, they are quite cool to look at ,through the safety of the glass and 3mm Perspex barriers of course.

These spiders need feeding on a fairly regular basis and are fed a diet of live, or very recently live insects, mostly cockroaches and crickets. For a long time The Zozo was breeding a colony of cockroaches in the bathroom (safely ensconced in a double walled container before you panic) but it seems the wee beasties have munched their way through these as they no longer appear to be there. The current dish de jour would seem to be crickets. These live in a small box within the spider containment unit to keep them happy until such point as they become food.

We’ve recently had to move things about in the house. Willow will very soon outgrow her Moses basket so the living room has been reorganised to house the cot (Willow resolutely refusing to sleep upstairs). To accommodate this the spider containment unit has been moved upstairs onto the landing, which has presented a hitherto unexpected problem: chirping.

Crickets, as you may or may not know, make a chirping noise using their hind legs and you can quite often hear one of the crickets in the house doing this, especially during the night as my head is about 2m from them. What is surprising is its not the noise that I find disturbing, it’s that there is not enough of it. Having lived in many foreign countries and having, as I do, colonial roots, I am quite used the night sounds of the tropics and rather enjoy hearing the night time chorus of crickets, frogs and cicadas. It tells me that outside there is a tropical paradise, warm weather and good food. Hearing a single cricket somehow has the opposit effect. It causes to remind me that I am not in tropical climes, it’s cold outside and I’m going to have to leave the house in the dark and go to work in a few hours.

That said, the chirping does have one useful purpose: it tells me the internal holding cells of the spider containment unit have not failed and we do not need to look towards implementing the Hammer Down protocol should the second level containment fail. Its not quite the motion sensors and laser tripwires that I wanted, but The Zozo won’t let me have those because she thinks I’m being silly.

I was greeted last night as I crossed the threshold into the house by a not quite full bin bag containing assorted kitchen waste and the body of one ex-mouse. Said bag was unceremoniously dumped in the bin outside ready for collection by the bin men. Not quite the memorial I had in mind¹ but The Brain had at least picked the day before bin day to die.

It would also appear that bereavement leave doesn’t apply to small pets which is a shame, mainly because if I could swing a day off for a dead mouse then perhaps I could also blag days off for dead cockroaches. Not that we keep cockroaches as pets mind you. No, they are food for the spiders. As such they don’t really have names other than “no, not you” and “yes you!” as the great hand of doom looms over the box they call home to select one to it’s fate. Nor could we really argue any great sadness at their passing. I remain indifferent while The Zozo emits great squeals of delight as various arachnids attack and kill their prey with quite frightening speed. What we do have with the roaches is frequency of death. I could phone in several times a week with “boo hoo! Little Yes You the 26th passed away last night, I’m too upset to come in”. But no, they’re not buying it.

¹I wanted proper burial with headstone, 21 gun salute performed by the Royal Artillery while overhead a Lancaster and spitfires in missing man formation did a flyby. Perhaps a short speech by The Queen. Nothing fancy, just something fitting.

So first there was Sooty, The Zozos Brazilian Black tarantula which I got for her when I said she could have a tarantula for Christmas. Sooty was soon scheduled to have two friends to join him, although these have yet to arrive due to cold weather (one rather suspects they’ll be pitching up soon though given it’s getting warmer). And now we have Ozzy, the latest addition to The Zozos menagerie. Ozzy is a 2+ inch Pink Toed tarantula who just so happened to be available for sale at the tropical fish place in North Walsham where we’d gone to purchase… actually, what we’d gone there for was never really defined, we just happened to leave with a spider and bits for this spider.

Like Sooty, Ozzy is black which prompted The Zozo to name him (or her) after Ozzy Osbourne. Unfortunately for The Prince Of Darkness our Ozzy also has pink feet (hence the name Pink Toed) which I’m pretty sure would elicit a tirade along the lines of:

“Shaarron!!! What the fuck is this? I’m the Prince Of Fucking Darkness, not some fucking pansy with pink fucking shoes!”

A few things are beginning to worry me. I was sold the first tarantula on the basis that it was slow, docile and calm. Ozzy is arboreal. Ozzy can jump. Ozzy can jump quite a considerable distance given Ozzy’s size.This is something I’ve only just found out, after Ozzy was brought home. The Zozo has also bought a pair of tweezers for feeding. These are about a foot long. Why does she need to be a foot away from this thing when feeding it?

Thankfully, looking at the available space for the spiders once the last two come there won’t be any more space for any more… for the time being :S

The Zozos new spider

The Zozo, it would appear, has been bitten by the tarantula bug. While much less painful that being bitten by an actual tarantula it is slightly more expensive. If I am reading her latest Facebook status correctly I’m not just buying her Sooty for Christmas, but two, possibly larger friends.

I really shouldn’t be surprised, the Zozo loves animals, especially ones that others tend to shun¹ (spiders, leeches… not wasps though, everyone hates wasps). The other hint I should have picked up on was the forums she’s been visiting. The vast majority talk about their tarantulas plural. Owning just 1 seems to be the exception rather than the norm and it would appear many people have quite a few of varying sizes.

As I’ve stated before I can’t say no to my wife, however, I’m not a carpet either. ‘Yes’ can come with strings and conditions. ‘Yes’ can buy brownie points which, despite their short half life, can be redeemed for things I want. Time to find out what 3 tarantulas is worth

¹ My working theory is that’s why she married me given she is waaaay out of my league

If you read the tales of Shelob you’ll have worked out that I am not overly fond of spiders. Small spiders (a few millimetres total leg span) I can cope with, any bigger and we’re entering phobia territory. Shelob had, at a guess, a body that was a quarter to half an inch big and then legs that gave it an overall size of 2-3 inches. A monster… for this country.

The Zozo is not afraid of spiders (or leeches, or, indeed many things). In a previous job she had to look after a Mexican Red Knee (the ones they always use in films) which is, apparently, one of the more docile tarantulas and about as deadly as a bee¹. Recently her current workplace also acquired one of these eight legged beasties and her previous experience means she is best placed to look after it. The problem is her job means she can’t spend much time with Felix² and that means she’d like a pet tarantula of her own. At home. Where I live.

I should perhaps explain a few things at this juncture. The first bring that I cannot say “no” to my wife³ so if she wants a tarantula for Christmas then she shall jolly well have a tarantula for Christmas, phobias be damned! Secondly there is a very big difference between Shelob, a wild, giant, fast, unpredictable spider lurking in our house, waiting, lurking; and a docile pet tarantula living in a locked enclosure made from toughened, bullet proof glass surrounded by laser motion sensors coupled to an alarm system and a fully documented containment strategy complete with “Hammerdown” protocol⁴.

Despite being ostensibly for Christmas I know very little about Tarantulas and their upkeep so me going out and buying everything, setting it up, wrapping it up and putting it under the tree wasn’t going to work. For starters there are 900 different types of tarantula ranging from the merely big to the insanely large (25-30cm!), the docile and slow to the mean and fast. There are arboreal ones, terrestrial ones, old world ones, new world ones, ones from arid climes, ones from humid areas and there’s a rainbow of colour schemes to choose from. No, this was something The Zozo was going to have to pick out herself.

After much deliberation she settled on a Brazilian black. This is supposed to be the most docile tarantula, slow growing, long lived and ideal for beginners. As the name implies they’re jet black and quite attractive in a “keep that thing away from me” kind of way. As fully grown specimens are incredibly hard to come by The Zozo chose a “grown on spiderling” which arrived yesterday.

Sooty⁵ is only about an inch big but already his body size is the same size as Shelobs. In toughly 5 years time, when Sooty is fully grown, he will be 6 inches across and Shelob will be but a snack to him. At that size spiders can just look at the business end of a Dyson and laugh. The Zozo seems to think that, in time, I may become brave enough to handle Sooty. I suspect this is her being overly optimistic. One thing is for sure though, I am secretly looking forward to photographing him

¹ i.e. not very… unless you’re allergic to them so best get yourself down to hospital just in case, but you’ll probably be fine.

² Yes, Felix. Hard to take a beastie seriously, no matter how large and how many legs, when they’re called Felix.

³ This is, of course, unless I’m answering a question that’s starts with the words “Did you remember to…” in which case the answer is invariably “no” said in a small voice with downcast head.

⁴ The exact security arrangements are yet to be thrashed out. It would seem various non-proliferation treaties stop me from using a nuclear Hammerdown option despite it being a well known fact that taking off and nuking the site from orbit is invariably the best option (c.f. Aliens, Cloverfield and point 1 from yesterday’s post if you don’t know what I’m talking about)

⁵ Yes, Sooty. Sooty the Brazilian black tarantula.

We have a spider in our living room. Normally I’d not mention such seemingly trivial things but this particular spider is a monster. I’ve named it Shelob which should help convey the sheer monstrosity of this beast.

I’m not great with spiders and anything over a few mm in diameter (including legs) needs to be dealt with using specialist equipment. Medium sized spiders are handled with a glass with a bit of card slid underneath. Larger and more dangerous specimens are handled at a remove with the Dyson. Monster spiders, such as the one we have are traditionally with by small, hairy footed hominids wielding magic swords. Lacking, as we do, a friendly hobbit I am turning to a more modern solution.

The Zozo, you see, is made of sterner stuff than I and will happily scoop up Shelob In Her Bare Hands. This manoeuvre is performed with me safely out of harms way so that should the spider attack, or run, or look at either of us funny I can then run screaming like a little girl out of the house.

Once captured Shelob is then dumped unceremoniously into the mouse house whereupon our cute little meeces proceed to rip Shelob to shreds and devour her.

This is all very well and good but Shelob escaped the attempt to capture her and is still running free. I’ve checked my bag and jumper many times today in case she’s decided to hitch a lift so she can eat me in the office. I’m hoping this is not the case and that I’ll get to watch the latest episode of meeces vs spider tonight.

It’s not secret that I don’t like spiders. While I can cope with money spiders and daddy long legs [yes, I know they're not spiders, but they are spider like] anything too large (and by too large we’re talking about 1cm diameter including legs) makes my skin crawl. In the past the standard method for spider disposal has been glass over the top of spider, card slid under the glass, spider flushed down toilet since, according to a TV program I vaguely remember watching when I was younger, washing them down the plughole doesn’t work as they just escape up the overflow pipe. In recent times The Zozo, who is made of sterner stuff than I, has picked up the spider In Her Bare Hands! and disposed of the spider outside, although I remain unconvinced that it doesn’t just find its way back into the house minute later.Today we discovered a third way, and one I approve of.

While watching TV I spotted a spider of truly monster proportions (we’re talking maybe 1.5cm in diameter) trying to make its way, unnoticed, along the skirting board. The Zozo immediately sprung into action, but instead of releasing the spider into the great outdoors she deposited it into the mouse cage to see how the mice would react. The result: we appear to have a crack squad of highly trained ninja assassin mice who Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until The Spider Is Dead. The sight of Daisy holding the evil arachnid in her little front paws nibbling away at the treats she’s caught while Buttons fights for a share of the spoils is enough to warm the heart and bring a smile to the face. Woe betide any spiders that dare enter this house¹.

¹ I reserve the right to continue with the tried and tested trapping technique using a glass and cardboard before releasing them to be disposed of by our Spider Hunters.