I live in Austin Texas and my son received a female desert blonde (from an exotic pet store) for his birthday last week. We have been researching tarantulas and seem to have them on the brain now. Yesterday afternoon when my son got home from school he found a very small tarantula (about the size of a quarter, including leg span) in our backyard sitting on a toy. He is black and furry with a few orange spots on his abdomen. I easily caught him (he climbed right into the cup) and let him go into a small bug keeper. He explored for a bit then made himself a little web hammock and rested. He is exploring again this morning. I went to Petsmart to buy a critter keeper, water dish and some more substrate so that we could keep him but was told by the guy that worked there that local tarantulas will die after a few weeks in captivity. Is this true? If this is the case, I will certainly let him go but now that we are kinda attached to him I wouldn't mind raising him. Do people keep tarantulas that they catch as pets or should you only buy from the pet store or a breeder? I would love any advice I can get because I don't want to harm him in any way. If I left any important info out, just let me know.