They may creep some of us out (and you can bet that us includes yours truly), but we’ve all got our own little spot in the world, right? Anyway, I recently discovered that there may be a difference between baboon spiders and tarantulas. Let’s investigate!
Overview
First things first: Are tarantulas and baboon spiders the same thing? The quick answer to that would be yes and no. Tarantula is actually an umbrella term for spiders of the family Theraphosidae. That’s a bunch of large, hairy spiders that can be found all over the world (except in Antarctica). In fact, it includes 1,100+ hairy species.
And yes, baboon spiders are in one of the subfamilies, Harpactirinae, under the Theraphosidae classification. They get their name from the pads on their feet that look like baboon fingers, and they exclusively live in Africa. The highest concentration of these guys live in South Africa, where you can find more than 40 species of baboon spiders.
The umbrella term was coined when people started referring to all hairy spiders as tarantulas. It came from the tarantula wolf spider, Lycosa tarantula, which doesn’t even belong to the tarantula family. Today, it’s known as the tarantula wolf spider and all other hairy spiders as tarantulas.
Taxonomy
For a better idea of the layout of the taxonomy that binds baboon spiders and tarantula, here’s a quick overview:
- Phylum: Arthropoda (insects, scorpions, spiders, etc.)
- Class: Arachnida (insects, scorpions, spiders, etc.)
- Order: Araneae (true spiders)
- Suborder: Mygalomorphae (primitive spiders)
- Superfamily: Avicularioidea
- Family: Theraphosidae (tarantulas)
- Subfamily: Harpactirinae (baboon spiders)
Thus, you could say that baboon spiders are a type of tarantula. For the purpose of distinguishing between tarantulas and baboon spiders, like the rose hair tarantula and king baboon spider, we’ll treat them as two different things.
Physical Appearance
Tarantula: It’s hard to put the physical appearance of all hairy spiders into a box because, like I said before, there are more than a thousand tarantula species. Obviously, they don’t all look the same. The greenbottle blue tarantula is a vibrant and colorful guy with blue legs and an orange backside. That’s a lot different from the Brazilian black tarantula, which is an entirely black species. However, what they all have in common is their fine hairs, or setae, and eight legs.
Baboon spider: Unlike tarantulas in general, there’s something that all baboon spiders have in common. That’s the little black scopulae pads on their feet that look like a baboon’s finger pads. They’re just as hairy as other tarantula subfamilies and they also come in many colors.
Size
Tarantula: They’re one of the biggest spider species in the world, so I don’t have to tell you that they’re big compared to other spiders. Your average female tarantula, like the Chilean rose tarantula, can have a leg span of up to 5 inches, while males average closer to 3.5 inches. The biggest tarantula, and also the biggest spider in the world, the Goliath birdeater, boasts a leg span of up to 12 inches.
Baboon spider: Female baboon spiders are also almost always bigger than males, but the entire subfamily is a tiny bit smaller than other tarantulas. The common black baboon spider’s leg span can reach 6 inches, while the biggest baboon spider, the king baboon spider, only averages 8 inches.
Behavior
Tarantula: They may not be one of the most venomous spiders, but that doesn’t mean tarantulas are good pets for children. However, they are peace-loving critters, so they’d rather run or hide than face threats. They also molt, which means they shed their exoskeletons.
Baboon spider: Just like the other tarantula species, baboon spiders are also nocturnal animals. They spend most of their day in their burrows and at night they sit around and wait near the entrance for prey to come around. They’re not very fast, which is why they rely on the prey coming around by themselves. Unlike tarantulas, instead of hiding from threats, baboon spiders don’t think twice about lifting their front legs and biting.
Diet
All types of tarantulas are carnivores with a taste for small invertebrates. They feed on beetles, crickets, cockroaches, grasshoppers, small spiders, small mammals, small rodents, lizards, and frogs.
Habitat
Tarantula: Apart from the fact that they live all over the world, except in Antarctica, they’ve got a preference when it comes to their habitats. Tarantulas like tropical areas. That includes anything from tropical rainforests and grasslands with space to hide to deserts with lots of bugs and mountainous regions.
Baboon spider: They build their burrows lined with silk in savanna woodlands, dry scrublands, and grasslands all over Africa. You’ll mostly find these burrows under logs, rocks, and debris. The king baboon spider mostly lives in East Africa, the golden blue-legged baboon spider in South Africa, and the rear-horned baboon tarantula in many regions in southern Africa.
Other Differences
Defense mechanisms: They may be scary to us, but they still need to defend themselves from the threats of the animal world. And those threats actually include humans. Tarantulas and baboon spiders all have their own ways to protect themselves. The king baboon spider uses something called stridulation. That means it rubs its legs together to make a warning sound. It sounds like a screech or hiss and it’s very intimidating. Other species have urticating hairs that they release from their abdomens, while others even have these hairs on their pedipalps. Then, there are the big spiders that actually secrete a nasty liquid to ward off threats.
Similarities
Lifespan: Female hairy spiders have longer lifespans than males. Regardless of gender, both tarantulas and baboon spiders are still some of the longest living insects in the world. They can live for up to 30 years.
Reproduction: When the male tarantula is ready, he rubs his abdomen on a web. He secretes semen onto the web, which he then collects with his pedipalps. He then goes on a mission to find a suitable female and inserts the semen into her opisthosoma, an opening in her abdomen. He needs to hold back her fangs in the process and leave immediately when it’s done. She’ll get aggressive if he takes too long and eats him.
Pain and venom: Baboon spiders are venomous, but not enough to kill humans. The same goes for tarantulas. But that doesn’t change the fact that both baboon spiders and tarantulas are known for their painful bites. These bites can last a couple of hours and up to days at a time. King baboon spiders and Indian and Sri Lankan tarantulas are the species with the most severe bites.
