I had a pet tarantula when I was in high school, but I was never _really_ comfortable handling her. I think it would be interesting to see them in the wild, though. Here we have the banana spiders and the golden orb spiders, which make webs so tough you can actually bounce off one, walking, and if you MTB through one, the spider _always_ ends up clinging to the edge of your helmet as you swerve wildly trying to remove her. I'll take rattle snakes any day- at least they either stay put or cross the trail and are gone...

The worst thing to wake up and find on the wall is a giant roach!

Nanci