For most of us, the spider is a scary creature which scares us to death every time they crawl near us, but for Lisa Van Kula Donovan spiders are playmates.
The Entomologist hailing from America and currently residing at Hervey Bay, Brisbane, Australia has five deadly spiders in her house. In fact, once, she had kept as many as ten spiders in her home, and she and her family enjoy hanging out with them every day.
Lisa keeps a Golden Orb (Nephila) called Charlotte, an Isopedella species huntsman named as Flip and three Holconia immanis huntsman (Giant Greys) who are called Cuddles, Mr. Cuddles, and Parker. The Entomologist says, “Cuddles is the largest, she’s a female and I thought that name would be funny for a spider that has a 16-centimeter leg span.
Mr. Cuddles is her boyfriend who I saved from my friend’s house before she sprayed it for insects and spiders. Hopefully, they’ll have babies soon. And Parker is named after Peter Parker (Spiderman) because every time I hold him, he does the outstretched-leg Spiderman jump off my hand to get away.
Flip just came to me, but she’s the chilliest one I have and will just sit on my arm.”
Eight years ago, when Lisa moved to Australia, she felt attracted towards spiders. Once she even videotaped the tussle between a huge wolf spider and a tiny barn spider several years ago and was fascinated by the fact, that the tiny one emerged victorious over the big one.
At present, she has dedicated an entire room in her house to her pet insects. Charlotte, the Golden Orb resides comfortably, in the corner of that room and Lisa feeds them crickets through the huge web. The huntsmans occupy the zippered and locked cages and thrive on crickets, cockroaches, and mealworms.
Although Lisa was never bitten by her own spiders, recently she had experienced the bite of a huge wild huntsman. You might think what Lisa is doing is not normal, but according to the spider experts, Lisa’s private collection of spiders can be called “puppy dogs” of the spider world.
