Thursday, September 17, 2009

Bitten by an Orange Baboon Tarantula

I have more than one hundred Orange Baboon Tarantulas ranging in size from about 2 cm to fully grown adults. They have a very intense orange colour and they are indeed very beautiful to look at, especially after a moult.


But BEWARE!! They have a very nasty attitude. They are very defensive and will readily give a threat display when disturbed.

This photo below shows the OBT in threat display. Look carefully at those fangs.

We will now take a closer look at those fangs. ( See photo below )
During the last 2 months, I was bitten by an Orange Baboon Tarantula on 3 occasions.
All those bites happened because I was not careful when handling them.
You see, I always take photos of my tarantulas whenever I have the time. On those 3 occasions, it was my fault. I purposely disturb them so that they would give a threat display. That's what I wanted to photograph. But 3 times the same thing happened. When they get very irritated, they would simply jump out from the container and of course, it would land on either my hand or my legs as I was sitting down.

The first time, I was bitten on my left arm. I felt a very slight pain, like an ant bite. I did not think much about it as that particular OBT was only about an inch in size. The fireworks came about 20 minutes later. The area around the bite was burning - intense burning. Imagine a hot electric iron placed on your hand and it was there for about 20 hours. Painkillers have no effect.
There was swelling and then numbness. The crunch came the next day. There was muscular cramp in my left hand. The cramp came on and off. I had to take muscular relaxants to ease the suffering. On the third and fourth day the intense pain subsided but the cramp persisted until the seventh day.

On the 2nd occasion, I was bitten by another OBT on my left thigh. It fell out when I opened the container. I knew exactly what to expect. The same old thing happened again - intense hot pain and muscular cramp.

The 3rd time was two weeks ago. This time I was bitten by a 3 inch OBT. It was in threat display as I was focussing my camera on it when it suddenly jumped out and landed on my left ankle. Instantly it bit my ankle and ran away. I was expecting the same old thing again. Yes, it happened but thistime it was worse. The intense burning pain can make a grown man cry. The muscular cramp affects the calf muscle, the ankle and the toes. Hospitals do not have tarantula anti-venoms. I suffered for a week.

Look at the photos of my swollen left ankle.



31 comments:

  1. Nice pictures! And thanks for sharing your painful experience- it's good to be reminded every once in a while what the effects are of a bite from one of these guys- helps keep us from becoming complacent.

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    1. yes i understand i have 2 of them and a king baboon and you must have total respect for them and always be awear as they are very fast and bit sometimes without warning

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    2. yes i understand i have 2 of them and a king baboon and you must have total respect for them and always be awear as they are very fast and bit sometimes without warning

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  2. omg. who wants an obt, yikes. i will just stick with my curly hair, shes no problem

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  3. I have one of these and so does my brother we got them at the same time and for $20 dollars each! I hope we never get bit, but it seems inevitible?

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  4. Thanks for sharing that, at least I know what to expect and not freak out too much if it happens. Beautiful breed of tarantula tho!

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    1. just have respect for it and always be awear as the bit is very painfull i have a king baboon and 2 obt and they will attack with no warning sometimes just be very aware

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    2. just have respect for it and always be awear as the bit is very painfull i have a king baboon and 2 obt and they will attack with no warning sometimes just be very aware

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  5. ijust picked one up cute lil thing,i tend to keep new things like my one of a kind ornamental hypo birdeater all other babies died shes a one of a kind

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  6. Hi, just read your report from a link off another site. I got tagged on the finger, little 2" OBT. I can relate to most of the symptoms. I also had what I can only describe best as some disorientation effects that were annoying. Adrenaline surges too. Next morning and I have slight cold/flu symptoms, the hand of the finger tagged has joint aches. At the time of the bite I took 2 antihistamines plus both ibuprofen and paracetamol. I would describe the effects as being in "waves". Raised heart-rate was noticeable.
    My bite was down to my own human error, spider was unharmed and was fed the nice juicy cricket it expected.

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  7. Hi, thanks for sharing. I have a sling OBT, i think i will be more careful than if i had not read this :)

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  8. https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/260450 A girl in the story was so tortured by one of those

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  9. OBT = Orange Bitey Thing, no more needs to be said, I agree with i'll stick to my curly hairs lol!
    I'm too touchy, I like to handle all my animals but my tarantulas and scorpions are for admiring and not touching, I use a long paint brush and only open the lid enough to get it in, I do not ever open the lid all the way and wont, ive been bitten by some nasty native to PA spiders and that includes the black widow twice in the same incident, near death by followingmorning, i'd never intentionally expose myself to a potential bite, I like the new world 'T's for the scardey cat attitude and that they prefer to run away than fight. less toxicity in the venom and to hell with a 4 inch spider on my face, reminds me of the episode of Malcolm in the middle where hal had a monsterous ball on his face,no thanks lol!!

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  10. So scary but I just bought two adult OBT without prior knowledge of its notoriety. Must be very careful when feeding or changing the coco peat.

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  11. I heard they were bad but I didn't imagine it would be this notorious. I myself just received my OBT today, thanks for the heads up.

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    1. just give it respect and always be very aware

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  12. Looks like mymresearch before purchase attitude hasmpaidnoff yet again.....saw one of these spiders for sale and thought it was absolutely gorgeous.....after reading this i think i will continue admiring it from inside the store

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  13. i really want OBT but after reading this makes me think ten times :'(

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  14. Hi, can i ask a question? It is about using substrate. I am using coco coir. Is it necessary to change it or is it okay not to change it at all?

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    1. The only time I ever change the actual substrate in my enclosures is if I see signs of mildew or rot. Otherwise, there's no need to, at least with mine, they usually defecate in/around their water dish (which gets cleaned semi-monthly), plus a spider doesn't produce much defication. Ever see tiny little white dots sometimes? That's what it is

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  15. I have a pair of brach's (albo and vagans) specifically because they are handleable. I'm going to avoid OBT's.
    I'm still trying to decide on my next 'T', Brazilian Black or Pink Zebra...

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  16. I really appreciate you sharing this info so that way I KNOW what I'm in for IF either of my pterrors decide to make haste and give me a poke on their way. Most pages just say it's painful, blah-blah-blah. They don't actually describe what happens. Have you yourself, or anyone else ever been bitten by poecilotheria regalis, or nhandu chromatus? Not saying I'm purposely trying to get bit, but I'd like to know what I'm in for in case such a situation happens.

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  17. Since the bite is THAT bad, I would think it prudent to take safety precautions whenever there is possibility of attack. How much trouble would it be to don something bite resistant? For example a heavy wrap around plastic apron of some sort? and gauntlet style gloves? Or hey if one happens to also be a sportbike enthusiast and owns a full set of leathers?, mine could be stepped into and zipped up in minutes...those along any leather boots ... some leather gloves and I recon chances of being hurt drop to something more reasonable ...or would those fangs even pierce 1/4" of cowhide?

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  18. I was bitten by my full adult after he escaped and I found him in my shoe. Definitely an expert level animal. It was a horrible experience for me. I suffered from muscle craps /spazams for a month after. Beautiful creature though and the last spider I ever purchased.

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  19. Great stuff! I have just got an OBT sling and have been reading a lot of these bite reports. Thanks for your service to the hobby.

    I'd be delighted if you were to take a look at my site: http://tarantulair.com/blog . Let me know what you think and if you have any article ideas etc.

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  20. If you disturb the obt to make it threat pose then it serves you right, I'm sorry but I have no sympathy.

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  21. I'm new to thus. And have been given a small obt. I think it's 9 weeks old. Now i. Nervous about this bread.

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  23. Just got a obt sling and it all ready stands it's ground when I go to feed it lol

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