Hi guys, it's Em. Today I'm going to be doing a Creature Feature on one of my absolutely favorite creatures.

Today I'm going to be talking to you about tarantulas,

and in particular one of my favorite species of tarantula: the Brazilian Black Spider.

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[resuming normal speed] Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Bella! Whooo!

Bella would come from South America. After all, she is the Brazilian Black Spider.

Don't worry, don't confuse her with the Brazilian wandering spider,

which is even more venomous,

and I wouldn't be picking up a Brazilian wandering spider.

Bella over here is an arachnid, not an insect. An insect has six legs,

whereas arachnids have eight legs. Invertebrate means that she has her skeleton on the outside.

You and I, we're mammals. We have our bones on the inside because we have endoskeletons.

Her exoskeleton is basically like a suit of armor that she wears. They're not true bones.

It's basically a skeletal structure to help her be protected and to keep her upright.

On the inside, she has no bones whatsoever. She is very, very soft on the inside.

As a spiderling, Bella would have been really small,

but how does she grow to this size, when she wears such a restrictive exoskeleton?

This is one of my favorite spider facts. So what happens, and this is with all spiders,

pretend my hand is Bella.

She spends a couple of days eating lots of food, and she starts to get really, really sluggish.

Eventually, what she does is she actually crawls into somewhere nice and dark where she can feel protected.

She'll lay on her back. She actually breaks her exoskeleton,

and she pulls her new, softer body out, and she leaves the old exoskeleton behind.

Every single spider in the world does this.

So, this is Bella's old exoskeleton, and they shed literally everything!

All spiders have venomous fangs. She sheds her fangs.

She sheds her abdomen at the back here, and you can actually see if I turn it around,

You can see the hollowed out honeycomb area where she's actually pulled herself out of.

This is a growth thing, so a lot of spiderlings will do this much more frequently when they are babies,

whereas an adult Bella's size, she'll probably do it maybe once or twice a year.

I want to show you just how gentle Bella is, so I'm going to get her out onto my hand.

If you have a fear of spiders and you're actually watching this video,

Well done to you. Like, stick around. She's not gonna jump at the camera.

I'm not going to do any jump scares with her at all. I really want to show her off in the most positive light.

Don't worry, Bella doesn't actually live in here. She's actually coming to work with me later.

This is her travel box so that she can actually put her arms out and stable herself.

Like I said, they are very delicate creatures,

and I wouldn't want her to hurt herself flying around in a larger enclosure.

Come on, Bella. Are you ready to come out? That's it.

No, darling. We have to go—No, you have to come out. Come on.

So this here is beautiful, beautiful Bella. You can see she's actually really, really relaxed.

She's a very slow spider. She's very, very, very sweet.

Here's a little warning for you guys. I am going to hold her a bit closer to the camera now,

so if you're really, really not cool with spiders, just be warned

I'm gonna hold her a bit closer so you can have a really good look at her.

So she is a Brazilian Black Tarantula.

I actually like to call her Brazilian Black Spider because tarantula makes it sound really, really scary.

I think spiders are often thought of as like, tough-guy pets

that some people have to be super tough in order to keep a spider.

Honestly, I'm much more worried about picking up my hamster because hamster bites are the worst!

And I've been bitten by more hamsters in my life than almost any other animal.

Here's something I probably should have told you earlier. She is venomous.

Bella's venom is about as bad as a bee or a wasp sting.

The real issue comes when, if you're bitten by a spider, if you are allergic to the venom.

For that reason, I actually keep adrenaline shots in my house, just in case.

But I've been holding spiders for over ten years, and I've never once been bitten.

They actually are very, very courteous creatures.

They let you know with no uncertain terms that they don't want to be bothered.

With Bella here, if she didn't want to be held, she would bunch herself up into a corner,

and she'd display her venomous fangs.

Something else that she would do if she didn't want to be held is she would try to run away.

If you're still trying to hold them and you're still not getting the message,

there's one more thing that she can do.

Do you see how furry her abdomen is? It's really silky and furry.

Well, that abdomen there is covered in something called urticating hairs.

And if she was in a real pickle and she was really scared,

what she would do is she would actually use her back legs to kick that hair into the air.

They're almost like fiberglass fibers. When they get on your skin or in your eyes

or—God forbid—in your lungs, they are so itchy.

And while you're itching, it basically gives her a chance to walk away to safety.

So if you're ignoring a tarantula's signs that they don't want to be held

and you still go ahead, you kind of deserve a little bit of a nibble.

Bella here is still relatively young. She's about six years old,

but with the proper care, she could live up to 20 years.

The males live substantially shorter lifespans.

Their mission in life really is to mate with females.

However... [giggle] a lot of them end up getting eaten by the females.

Much like most of my exes....

Do you see over here, I've got two eyes! [giggle]

Well, Bella doesn't have two eyes. Just like her legs, she has eight.

Bella has three parts to the body. It's very, very simple.

Like us, she has her head;

and then she's got a middle part, which is the thorax;

and that big balloon at the back, that's her abdomen.

And that's where she actually produces her web from.

She doesn't perch on a spiderweb, like a garden spider would.

She's far too heavy for that, far too delicate for that.

So hers is more like a hammock.

She's more of a terrestrial animal, and she spins her web from the very back of her body.

She's got two little spinnerets just here, which are up backwards,

but if she wanted to web, they'd come down and they'd help her to string a web.

She'd sit in it like a hammock. And Bella is a predator.

She would actually wait for food to come to her,

and she would detect little insects on her hammock. Things like crickets and locusts.

Just remember guys, as much as I love spiders, I don't want anyone to get hurt.

So if you do see a spider around your house or outside,

The best thing to do is not to pick them up with your hands.

Make sure you use a glass with a piece of paper,

but be careful putting the glass over the paper to trap the spider

because you can hurt their little legs if you do trap them.

I hope that you managed to see today that Bella's actually an incredibly gentle, very sweet spider.

She really doesn't want to be going around hurting anyone,

and as you can see, she's a very very relaxed animal.

Thanks so much for watching, guys! We'll see you in another video shortly.

Are you gonna wave? Say... [voicing Bella] Bye, bye! [giggles]

...Bye.

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