While many in the world would simply move in and sell their homes, the (very rooted) Australian is proving to have reached a new level of abstraction by deciding to get a free-range spider indoors as a ‘pet’. Jake Gray makes a hunting spider to avoid cockroach pests inside the house, and even the little animal is named Charlotte.
The case is new and has taken off on social media in 2020, before the pandemic, when Gray posted a picture of the “pet” on the Australian Spider Identification Page, a Facebook group in Australia dedicated to sharing photos of spiders that appear in homes. of people.
Gray’s post quickly became popular with the group of about 73,000 people, with some even considering the possibility of the situation to be fake news, or even an exaggeration of the man. Earlier this year, Gray spoke to the US portal IFL Science to confirm the spider’s “adoption” and provide more details about the case.
“Hunter spiders have always been accepted into our home, especially since they eat crickets, and we chose not to use chemicals to kill any pests,” Gray said.
According to the Australian, the idea of giving the spider a name and treating it as a “pet” came in an attempt to calm the two children in relation to the spider. “The last time we saw Charlotte was about 12 months ago, and now she looks like she’s all grown up,” says the man.
Gray also said that watching Charlotte eat an Asian gecko (an Australian version of the popular Brazilian gecko) was the “highlight” of her relationship with the spider.
Dangers and care of spider hunting
To IFL Science portal, ecologist and spider expert, Linda S. Rayor explains that Hunting spiders generally don’t attack humans and details what to do if you find one (spoiler: they don’t breed like pets).
“If you meet a species, you need to do two things. The first is to control yourself, it won’t hurt you. The second is to get a bowl and bring the spider back to nature. Humans rarely bite, because they prefer to run to avoid predators. Even when they do bite, most bites Be quick and defensive without injecting poison.”
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