True Facts: Tarantulas

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“Science is sort of a long, passive-aggressive argument about everything” is now my new favorite definition of science.

I had a tarantula throw it’s hairs into my eyeball once, during a holiday weekend. Worst 3 days of my life. I started panicking about what to do but all I found was a news article and a medical journal entry 🫠 The entire ophthalmologist office would not shut up about my case, a lot of them had no idea that could even happen to you. I ended up having 7 hairs removed from my eyeball itself and 8 from the surrounding area. Upsides? I’m no longer scared of getting lasik, and I ended up being a students thesis and teaching moment about why you never look inside a box with an angry tarantula in it. Ever.

The cricket eating the other cricket while both are bring eaten by a tarantula feels like a marxist metaphore for class apathy.

"but Juliet is potentially a pissed-off cannibal" 😂😂😂 Love zefrank's humor

“Sort of like an upside-down version of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, except they both have bongos and Juliet is potentially a pissed off cannibal” is the best analogy for tarantula courtship I’ve ever heard.

Tarantulas are so entertaining to watch when they're out and about. Like a cross between a neurotic crab and a paranoid samurai.

I was camping in the Sonoran Desert. A few friends came over and we had our fire pit roaring and were enjoying the stars. Not long after starting our get-together, a tarantula comes sauntering over into the spotlight of the fire. I think he just wanted to party and hang out. After a few minutes, my friend stands up and says "Okay Bert, we didn't invite you and I think you're trying make our party all about you!" Bert slunk away slowly. So, tarantulas are just sensitive fuzzy emotional spiders. I still think about Bert and hope his mental health is okay.

“Like an exorcism, where you’re both the demon AND the possessed.” Is a phrase I didn’t know I needed

I am a veterinarian. One day I had a potential client call on the phone with quite a conundrum. He had a tarantula and he was, by his own admission, afraid of it. This guy wanted me to do an operation on his tarantula and remove its fangs because, as I mentioned earlier, he was scared of being bitten. I had to explain to him the several things wrong with that idea: 1) If this were to be done I don't know how i would anesthetize the spider since they don't have lungs for inhalant anesthesia and I certainly couldn't inject the spider with valium. I don't even know if valium will WORK on a spider but I know it would leave a very big leaky needle hole, plus I'd have to get the spider to hold still for it and, well, that wasn't going to happen. I could have placed the spider in a tank of anesthetic gas but how to monitor it escaped me, as it doesn't have the usual pulse and respiration, nor could I use a pulse oximeter on it. Even if it would work (which it wouldn't) I didn't have one small enough. There would be a very fine line between asleep spider and dead spider and one could become the other quite rapidly. 2) In veterinary school we are, quite frankly, taught how to KILL arachnids and insects (ticks and fleas, respectively) rather than operate on them. I suppose I could have opened up a whole new category of service for people with pet arachnids, but I'm sure I'd soon get someone wanting me to de-venom sac their Deathstalker Scorpion and I'm not going there. Finally, the 3rd problem with the idea is that if I 'defanged' his spider it would very quickly starve to death because it couldn't inject any venom in its prey. The guy sat quiet for a minute and then said, "I guess a tarantula won't make a good pet for me if I'm afraid of it." I agreed. He thanked me and hung up. That still ranks as one of the oddest telephone conferences I've ever had.

I had a Chilean Tarantula for 17 years. She was one of the kindest and easiest pets to ever take care of, even easier than owning a plant. RIP Rosy, may you eat your fill of crickets and worms in your heavenly hole.

9:16 "You can try this at home" absolutely slayed me I was giggling like a maniac and you can hear him try to hold it in as well.

The narration and writing for this was so unexpected. Hilarious, yet informative. Nice combination. Well done.

Remember when Zefrank was gone for a few years without any word? I'm so happy he came back, love these videos to death.

I got a tarantula as a teenager without knowing anything about tarantulas and the first time it molted I honestly thought it died. It was late so I figured I'd deal with cleanup the next day. When I got home from school I picked up the molt and was like, that ain't right, and the tarantula crawled out from under its log and was like Yo, whattup? Had dozens of pets of dozens of varieties and none were as gentle as that tarantula (Chilean Rose)

I'm terrified of spiders, and yet, I find tarantulas to be amazing and brilliant little creatures. Maybe because they are thick and furry, more like a mammal.

I'm 50, and I think I learned more about tarantulas in the last 15 minutes than I had in the rest of my entire adult life. And actually laughed out loud more than once during the learning. Kudos!

As someone who is terrified of spiders, I love this. Spiders are frightening yet so fascinating to me

Only Zefrank can make nightmare fuel creatures seem somewhat adorable. SOMEWHAT.

"These bebays..." Love how he says, babies😄