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| Name: |
Athena
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Age: |
Thirteen years old
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| Gender: |
Female
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Kind: |
Chilean Red Flame Tarantula
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| Home: |
Ontario, Canada
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This
is Athena, my Chilean Red Flame Tarantula. Athena is very special to me
because I was looking for her kind for a while and then I finally found her
at the Reptile Expo. But after three months I noticed that she was starting to
spin a lot of web inside her shelter. I didn't know what was going on with
that ... until the next morning-it was also my birthday - I looked in her tank
and Athena was holding an egg sac in front of her. I was very happy and so
surprised that she laid on egg sac. She had never been with a male during the
time that I had her - I had just bought her three months ago! I guess her previous
owner had given her a boyfriend for a while. But it was a great birthday
present for me to see a tarantula with an egg sac and then for it to hatch
and for me to care for 190 spiderlings!
I'm not really sure of Athena's exact age...the vendor who I bought Athena
from in 2010 only had her a few months and he said he was pretty sure that
she was wild-caught, so I just put a guess down at thirteen years - but she could be
older or younger. It's hard to tell the age of mature adults-unless you raise
them up from babies. I found homes for all those babies-and kept two of her
sons and one of her daughters. It was quite an experience looking after 190
spiderlings! I had to house each one in a separate container as tarantulas
are cannibals and the babies would eat each other. I used baby food jars to
house the babies and they ate pinhead crickets.
Once Athena helped a young woman overcome her arachnophobia! She had
contacted me through kijiji and said that there are some fears she was
working to overcome and one of them is to hold a tarantula. I had never met
this person before but she seemed nice and so we set up a date for her to
come by with her sister and she held Athena to overcome her arachnophobia.
She even gave her a kiss at the end! So Athena is not only a celebrity with
Santa in the paper, she is also a great teacher and ambassador, helping
people to overcome their fear.
Another reason that Athena is so special to me is because every year I take
my snakes or geckos or tarantulas to see the Santa at PetSmart and a few
years ago a reporter from a Toronto newspaper found out about it and wanted
to do a Christmas article for the next day's paper about us. We set a date
for me to take Athena to see Santa, then the reporter interviewed me and took
Athena's picture with Santa. I was so happy that Athena was famous locally,
now she is famous for the whole world to see!
Athena wishes you all a Merry Christmas, and hopes Santa is good to you, too!
View more images of Athena!
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Talk about Athena in Pet Talk!
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