… Go to a Tarantula Exhibition?

What’s it like to go to a tarantula exhibition with your kid?

Today, we drove to a tarantula exhibit in the city of Solingen, West Germany. On two floors, they had different critters, not just tarantulas. There were also live stick insects, caterpillars, crabs, and snails. In addition, there were some model insects, so the children and adult visitors could see the explained inner parts of the arthropods. Finally, there were several tables with taxidermy beetles and other insects.

Grandma accompanied us and was not very happy, but she still looked at the spiders and even watched a movie that showed people with spider bites and scorpions stinging and eating their prey.

Lyons Cub enjoyed his plastic spider in slime and the rubber lizard he bought at the entrance. He also loved the fuzzy, white nets some of the spiders had spun to make their caves in them. We saw most of the animals, although some were really good at hiding and blending in with their surroundings. The animals were in little, acrylic cages with heat lamps. There were signs admonishing the visitors not to touch the cages. The animals were very chill and mostly just resting.

Here are a few of the beautiful specimen we saw:

Mommy loved the walking sticks most. She also has one in amber!

This is mommy’s walking stick in amber, about 50 million years old from the Eocene (in Baltic amber).

Here’s a whip spider hidden in the lower right-hand corner behind the fake plant:

And here’s a beautiful leaf insect, hanging from the grid at the top of the cage. It looks like a green leaf, of course!

Look at this cockroach. We also have several of those in amber, even egg-sac laying ones:

And these are thorny devil stick insects, Eurycantha calcarata:

Look at these big, majestic spiny leaf insects:

Here’s a Neohirasea:

Here are lots of thorny stick insects (Aretaon asperrimus):

This is a Chaco golden knee tarantula (Grammostola pulchripes):

This here is the Burgundy goliath bird eater tarantula:

Here, we have a Mexican redleg:

One aisle had the taxidermy beetles, moths, and butterflies:

We’re back to the spiders. Here’s one from Guatemala (Costa Rican zebra tarantula):

This is the Brazilian greysmoke spider:

This is a gray Chilean spider (Grammostola porteri):

Here’s a Lasiodora:

Some more taxidermy insects:

Some plastic model insects with their explanations:

A beautiful, bit Venezuelan Greenbottle blue tarantula (Chromatopema):

This is a beautiful red tarantula (Cyclosternum fasciatum):

And here are some more tarantulas, with beautiful webs:

Some praying mantises among all the tarantulas:

Some giant snails and more tarantulas:

And now to the absolute highlight: For EUR 5.00 per person, you could take photos with a soft, hairy tarantula in your hands and receive the photo printed out immediately: