Tarantulas are large primitive spiders that have a primitive type of respiratory system with their fangs pointing downwards. The size of a tarantula can range from a very small size to a big plate size. These creatures do not learn anything about their surroundings but understand by the actions they are put in. They then react accordingly after that.
Do tarantulas have feelings? Tarantulas don’t show any feeling of happiness or sadness or even the feeling of like or dislike. They lack any sort of complex personality or any personality at all as they cannot feel such complex emotions due to the structure of their brain. They still have huge neurological processing and are fully aware of their surroundings.
Can they feel anything at all?
There is no such record of tarantulas showing emotions. It does show traits of aggression which we believe to be a defense mechanism of how it deals with stress. Tarantulas are of two types namely -The New World Tarantulas and the Old World Tarantulas .
The New World Tarantulas generally belong from various regions of South America, Canada, and America. They tend to show some significant defense mechanisms like kicking their urticating hair off their abdomen which results in rashes on the skin surface, coughing, and might even result in respiratory distress if they come in contact with your nose.
The Old World Tarantula belongs to any place around the world other than America. They have a wide variety of behavior and are considered even more defensive than the New world Tarantulas.
Tarantulas are considered not as friendly as other pets and tend not to like the presence of a human being around them. They can however get used to your touch eventually and might associate you as someone without a threat. This might be assumed as a sense of being trusted by them but can’t be compared with other animals.
Do they have any feelings for the opposite gender?
There is not much information about the various traits of Tarantulas available with us as the research done on them is very limited. They do not show any kind of romantic behavior towards the opposite gender. Unlike other animals like dogs, cats, wolves, tiger, lion and many more animals who significantly show a strong bond of relationship towards its opposite gender, tarantulas on the other hand just have an urge to have bred. All they want is to have mating just to give birth to the young ones and not because they are physically attracted towards the opposite gender.
The female tarantula would be aware of the male being suitable for breeding and this is a high enough criterion for her to expose her genitals and start the ritual of mating. The whole act of mating is not romantic at all. Mating is just considered as a biological urge rather than an emotional urge.
Most people consider keeping them as pets. They do not show any emotions towards their owners and the same is the case with plants. It is absolutely a fair choice to keep them as pets as there is no record of them ever killing someone or being venomous to an extent that is life-threatening.