I Kept A Joro Spider As A Pet For My 7 Year Old Daughter

I Kept A Joro Spider As A Pet For My 7 Year Old Daughter

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There’s this new invasive species that’s taken over much of the southeastern United States. With some media sensation — A docile yet visually imposing arachnid hitched a ride on some air streams like it’s around the world in 80 days. Somehow these spiders found their way into the south eastern United States and found that it’s almost a perfect habitat. Weaving these golden threads through the air in elaborate displays of artistic gravitas they challenge the Appalachian mind in ways few bugs can. Hence, I found one that seemed to be on the edge of death in one the first big freezes to strike Tennessee I felt like this would be a good time to give my daughter a new spider-sister to admire.

So hence Poppy joined the family. I found a terrarium that my mother had left before a big move and in its desolate climate there she found a home. Here we filled it with foliage, and collected some bug homies outside and threw them in the mix like she’s some dangerous and vicious predator. Surprisingly she was nothing of the sort.

You see, Joro spiders are misunderstood. Their colors may say “Danger!!” But, their fangs are too small to really pierce most human skin, On top of that, it’s like a little bee sting at worst if it even does. Though, allergic reactions are always a possibility so handling any spider with respect is really important. She had a cockroach off the back porch, a stink bug, a wolf spider, a daddy long legs, and what was amazing was how soft and gentle she interacted with these other creatures. Not a single violent action, no attack, just a beautiful stillness interrupted by whatever vibrations four children will cause stomping all over a kitchen dining room.

Some time passed, her friends not becoming food but just drying out into husks their short natural life cycle demands them to become. Still, Poppy rested on her web in quiet stillness.

Until her backside literally blew up. Out spawned from her was the largest clump of web I’ve ever seen, and within it… THOUSANDS OF BABY SPIDERS IN DORMANT SLEEP. Poppy, having spent her time in stillness with the writhing life within her she now lays in her bed of web weary, and soon after her life giving eruption, her abdomen (opisthosoma) was a shriveled husk that in her motherly sacrifice, now is a ridged and horrifying exhalation of life. Poppy died.

This had me thinking about the mother of my children, all mothers, that before modern medicine, this was almost the norm for women too. Poppy taught us all a lesson in the gravity of life through life spent, bringing new respect and care to the mothers out there who sacrifice their body for the lives they bear