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Besides its main butterfly garden conservatory, the Texas Discovery Gardens building boasts an extensive interior dedicated both to touring exhibitions and to local art events. At the moment, it also features a semi-permanent set of animal enclosures, transported there from the old Dallas Museum of Natural History. In keeping with the theme, the majority are of indigenous Texas species, such as the Texas coachwhip (Masticophis flagellum), but it contains a contrast between our local and more exotic spider species.
Compared to the beautiful Brazilian tarantula on display, our local tarantula species, 14 of which in Texas, appear both dull and boring. Succumbing to that assumption means missing out on a gentle-tempered, agreeable spider with plenty of fascinating behaviors. Having burned out an extremely intense case of arachnophobia in my teenage years thanks to one, I have a soft spot for all of our local species. Seeing one in captivity brought back a lot of memories, all of them good.
More to follow…