18/02/2010 Venom might not kill you but hairs cause damage

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The danger of keeping tarantula spiders as pets has been highlighted once more with one particular owner having to seek hospital treatment for injuries to his eyes.

It is a well known fact that most tarantulas can not kill humans with their venom but it seems that one surprised owner was not aware that the spider could inflict another type of injury by simply rubbing its legs against its abdomen and shooting out tiny hairs.

The latest recipient of their spider’s anger visited his doctor complaining of an inflammation of the eyes. The doctor inspected his eyes and found that there were tiny hairs sticking out of his eyeball and some imbedded in the cornea. The patient then remembered an episode where he had been cleaning out the spider’s tank and the spider had released “a mist of hairs” which hit his face and eyes.

The doctor was unable to remove the hairs from his patient’s eyes and had to, instead, prescribe a long term period of steroids to dampen the effect of irritation.

There are thought to be thousands of people in the UK keeping spiders as pets, the most popular pet tarantula is the Chilean Rose variety, they are not too big, not very aggressive and are fairly easy to keep. David Field from the Zoological Society in London said “I advise anybody keeping such tarantulas as pets to be aware of the danger”.

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