Making New Friends in the DR

Before coming to the Caribbean, we were in Botswana for two years, where nightmarish insect encounters were a matter of course. I will never forget our first Christmas in Botswana, when we naively attempted to bring a live, potted pine tree, sparse in branch and spitefully sharp in needle, into the house to decorate. A few days after Christmas our tree hatched a brood of tiny praying mantises, and although they were highly efficient ant-eaters, we regretted this insectoid nativity scene all the same.
There’s more. Once or twice a year, after a long dry spell ends with an anti-climactic drizzle that evaporates before it hits the ground, legions of termites take to the air, swarming every light fixture until they fall to the ground and shed their transparent amber wings. The next morning, the city is covered in the delicate detritus of termite wings that defies brooms and vacuum cleaners, swirls out of dustpans on the way to the bin and creeps inside the house from under closed doors.
More than once, a fist-sized dung beetle capsized on our patio, buzzing in alarm, and flapping his wings in an ineffective attempt to right itself. There were incredibly fast house spiders, flat, brown and menacing, who explode into a million pieces when swatted. Under the carpet one might find foot-long millipedes that, hedge-hog-like, curl up in defense when being scooted out the door with the end of a stick. There was also the time I found a giant, orange funnelweb spider (see photo) peering at me from his 5 foot-tall web on our patio, not to mention a million other trespassers of the creepy-crawly variety, 6- and 8-legged pests with warm fuzzy names like “blister beetle” and “shongololo.”

Funnelweb Spider, Gaborone

So when I first arrived in the Dominican Republic a year and a half ago, I was relieved by its relative lack of icky bugs. Yes, there are multitudes of mosquitos, a surprising variety of ants that seem to take turns invading our kitchen cupboards, and the occasional cockroach, but on the whole, I found the island to be pleasantly bug-free.

Until last week.

Last week, I was walking my dog in the Mirador Sur, blissfully unaware of the presence of ginormous bugs in the greater Santo Domingo area, when I walked past what looked like a heap of excrement left behind by a street dog with indigestion. However, after a double-take I discovered that it was, in fact, a tarantula which apparently had a bit of bad luck trying to cross the street. I studied it for only a brief moment to confirm that it was actually a tarantula, and then, with a bad case of the heebie-jeebies, I moved on, praying someone’s pet tarantula had escaped and that I had not just seen an arachnid native to Hispaniola.
As it turns out, there is such a creature as the Hispaniolan Giant Tarantula (locally called “cacata”). According to several websites, including http://www.therealdr.com/ and http://www.wikipedia.org/ the tarantula’s “fangs … are quite formidable at more than 2 centimeters long, and when they pierce the body of its victim, venom is injected which paralyzes and breaks down the body tissue of the prey, allowing the tarantula to suck up the liquefied insides.” The article in question goes on to describe the tarantula’s revolting digestive and mating habits, but I won’t get into too much detail here. Suffice to say, the tarantula is generally a docile animal, although “if threatened …they can bite or … flick off urticating (stinging) hairs that they carry on the back of their abdomen.” The article assured me that even though local legend has it that the tarantula’s bite is deadly, that in fact they rarely bite, and when they do, the venom is highly irritating, but not deadly.

Hispaniolan Giant Tarantula

Even more troubling than the presence of tarantulas in the Mirador Sur was my discovery that the tarantula’s most dangerous predator is the Tarantula Hawk – predictably coined “matacacata” by Dominicans (see photo). This endearing creature is actually “a very large wasp, with an iridescent blue-green body and orange-red wings that grows to about 2 inches or more in length. It stings the spider … to paralyze it, then lay its eggs on the abdomen. The wasp will drag its victim to a safe place to incubate its young. Once the larva hatch they will feed on the live, paralyzed tarantula until it expires.” Another source went on to explain that the larva actually save the spider’s large vital organs for last, in order to keep the tarantula alive longer. (To see several ghastly videos of tarantulas unsuccessfully fighting Tarantula Hawks, visit http://www.youtube.com/ and search for “tarantula hawk”, although you may never set foot outdoors again).

Unlike our new friend the Hispaniolan Giant Tarantula, the Tarantula Hawk delivers what is considered one of the most painful stings in the world, described very scientifically by one researcher as “immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down ones ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream.” Another article compares it to “a running hair drier …dropped into your bubble bath.” In fact, the sting of this wasp is rated at the top of the (ahem) Schmidt Sting Pain Index.

[Note to self: avoid Tarantula Hawks]

OK, so in all reality, I will probably never see another “cacata” and I certainly hope I’ll never meet the business end of a “matacacata.” But boy, do I miss those praying mantises.