DATE: Saturday, October 18, 1997            TAG: 9710180337

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   59 lines

TARANTULAS: LITTLE CREEPS WITH LARGE FRIGHT POWER

Amid ``creepy crawly'' creatures appearing in a Halloween exhibition opening today at the Virginia Marine Science Museum, those fascinating me most are species of tarantulas in the show.

My interest stems from a long-gone Saturday when the clerk in the A&P opened a crate of bananas. A tarantula popped out. ``TARANTULA! RUN!'' he yelled.

Six women jumped atop a counter as if compelled to tap dance. The butcher flung a cleaver at the spider. It hit the pickle barrel which sprang vinegar like the biblical rock that spouted water.

The manager broke out brooms and men fell to swinging, toppling canned goods that rolled underfoot, tripping people trying to get out.

I began to pull for the spider. Anything that creative ought to be left to run its course. It vanished into the stockroom but it continued to run in conversation a long time.

I asked museum interpreter CarolAnn Curran the type tarantula that jumped out of bananas.

``The banana tarantula,'' she said.

``I'm sure it had no idea it was in a grocery store and not the jungle and I'm sure that the discovery frightened it.''

It has yellow or lime or green markings mingled with black ones, rather like a banana at varied stages, and it is akin to the yellow and black garden spider we see hereabouts. ``Its sting is no worse than that of a bee,'' she said.

All that furor in the A&P for practically nothing!

The banana tarantula - I admire the swing of that name - is not among the four species in the museum. The most spectacular on view there is the bird-eating tarantula that, full grown, is as big as a dinner plate. Ye gods!

The one at the museum, a juvenile five inches long, ``has a lot of growing to do,'' CarolAnn said.

Even now it is big enough to scatter a crowd in the A&P and bring 'em piling out of Red Gorman's Barber Shop across the street.

In the wild, it climbs trees, lies in wait, and pounces on a bird that alights nearby. Bye-bye, birdie!

Then there is the striped tarantula, so named for its six brown-striped seersucker-like knees. It injects venom that dissolves its prey's insides, which the spider sucks up. It leaves behind the shell.

To hold the striped spider, CarolAnn cups both hands. ``It would only bite if it were frightened or hungry,'' she said.

Two others are the rosy-haired tarantula and a red-rumped spider, both five inches long ``with some growing to do.'' Among other species on view for a month are bats, cockroaches, rats, snakes, scorpions, leeches, worms, maggots.

The exhibit aims to show us that they are ``incredibly important tools in the environment,'' she said.

A trick that treats! ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot

CarolAnn Curran holds a striped tarantula, with seersucker-like

knees.

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