Who's afraid of Tarantulas?

[krucz36]

good point wade. i think the previously mentioned "alien" factor comes into play a lot as well. my daughter doesn't have any fear at all of snakes unless she's supposed to...she gets familiar with an animal before trying to handle or manipulate it in any way. she even took time with my 1' baby cornsnakes.
i myself have some fear when approaching any unfamiliar animal, be it two, four, eight or more-legged. i think it's healthy to have some fear...that's what keeps you out of trouble!

 

[bness2]

Originally posted by Wade
I've often thought that people are repulsed by animals that have more limbs (insects, spiders, myriapods) or fewer limbs (snakes, worms) than we do.

Excellent point, Wade. I have a student who has expressed her fear just this way. She is deathly afraid of spiders, gets goose bumps, itches and even has nightmares just thinking about them. She says she is afraid of pretty much anything with 8 or more legs. Last year, she was one of my student lab instructors, and I had brought in several millipedes. She wouldn't handle one of those either. Too many legs.

I have had a lot of talks with her and she wants to get over her fears and is actually working on it. I loaned her a book about spiders over the summer and she read about half of it. Keep in mind that she couldn't even look at pictures of spiders without feeling panicked. Yesterday, she came by my office and actually looked at the slings that I had just unpacked. She got some goose bumps, but she looked anyway and actually felt good about it. Our goal is for her to touch my rosie by year's end. We'll see.

Bryan