When you got up first thing this morning and went into the bathroom with sleep still in your eyes, what did you find? Perhaps an ant, maybe a cockroach if you live in the South, maybe one of those skinny little spiders in the corner. You probably didn’t find anything of note and so you continued your day without any thought of what an adventure it might be to go to the bathroom. Let me tell you what I found last week when I went down to the latrine; perhaps your experience was somewhat like mine.
It was early morning on Saturday and with that sleep still in my eye, I walked through the dewy grass to the latrine. I was going to sweep out the latrine and behind the broom was this Hairy-Hoo-Hoo just hanging out. I told Edd but by the time he got down there, it was gone. Naïve us thought that meant the enormous tarantula had rationally decided to move to other haunts. Not so. Two days later, I again found Hairy in the latrine first thing in the morning and this time booked it up to the house to tell Edd. Though he didn’t say it, I knew he thought I was overreacting. In fact, he reminded me that people keep tarantulas as pets. So he grabbed the giant size can of bug spray (the brand is Baygon which in Spanish is pronounced “bygone” as in, “Let big hairy tarantulas the size of my fist be bygones”) and headed down. Hairy was waiting and, Edd says, was running towards him at the door when he opened it. Hairy proceeded to play some hide-and-seek, scuttling around the corner of the latrine and peeking out every time Edd made a move. Finally, he sprayed Hairy and down he went. We thought that was the end of it. Edd came up to tell me that it was the largest tarantula he’s ever seen. This time, I decided to join him (after all, Hairy was dead now) and we headed back down to the latrine to sweep out his furry corpse. But when we opened the door, Hairy was waiting around the corner - he was still alive! Edd grabbed a log and clubbed him twice, finally putting Hairy to rest. Edd swept him out of the latrine, leaving his body on the side of the stairs. Later that day, I went to the bathroom and looked for Hairy’s body but it was not there nor in the immediate vicinity. I mentioned this to Edd, who had also noticed Hairy’s absence and provided the explanation that cutter ants had probably already carried off his body. I’m skeptical.
About 30 minutes after the early morning tarantula slaying, I reached up on the shelf to grab the water filter. I checked inside the filter by sticking my finger inside to see if it was dry and a scorpion about 3 inches long flew out and landed on the wall. Fortunately, Baygon actually does a quick job of killing scorpions and in a matter of seconds, this teenager was dead. Once you kill a scorpion, you still have to be careful because their stingers are potent for a few hours after they’re dead. Alternately, you could cut off the stinger and let the scorpion limp away in shame. Recently while we were having lunch at a neighbor’s house, we learned that if you are stung by a scorpion, you eat sugar. Good to know.
In addition to my recent encounters with these creepies, I’ve also had some neat interactions with or observations of animals that are apart from my experience with animals in the US. I watched a chicken with a frog in its mouth be chased by another chicken, a baby cow walked up close to check me out (a little freaky), we found rows of cutter ants carrying pieces of leaves twice their size, we watched two hummingbirds take turns drinking from a waterfall, in our yard giant toads come out when it rains, and there are lots of pretty butterflies everywhere. Living in the Guatemalan jungle is not all scary, crawly things and it has been fun to experience life so close to nature.
However, we still have a few questions and I’m hoping some of our friends and family can help us out. We’ve really had trouble getting on the internet lately for long periods of time and haven’t had a chance to look up information about some of these new “friends”. Here are some of our questions:
-Do tarantulas lay eggs? If so, is it likely that Hairy is actually a she-Hairy and babies will soon abound in the latrine?
-Are tarantulas in Guatemala poisonous or do they bite? How high can they jump?
-Would cutter ants want to carry away and eat a tarantula?
-Are the black scorpions in Guatemala poisonous?
-If a tarantula and a scorpion got in a fight, who would win?
Spanish vocabulary:
Tarantula – tarantula
Scorpion – alecran
Butterfly – mariposa
Frog – sapo
Oh my God! – Dios mio!
Get the spray! – Traiga el espray!
I thought you said you killed it! - Pensé que me dijiste que lo mataste!
Bonus! Creepy that we found while exploring caves last week!
