OBT

Among tarantula keepers, OBT stands for Orange Bitey Thing. The scientific name for the notorious OBT is P. Muirinus and they are known for their bright, attractive and varied color morphs, their voracious appetites and for being perhaps the most defensive (not to be confused with prey aggression, which is considered a desired trait for a T to have) tarantula on the market. When the biggest, baddest new world species like the Goliath bird eater just aren’t doing it for you anymore a veteran T keeper might look to the African and southeast Asian species, collectively known as old world Ts. Old world Ts lack venomous hairs to kick at you but have much stronger venom and much nastier temperaments. OBTs are the final art of a T keeper and if you can work with an OBT, there is no spider you can’t work with. Ts have their own personalities just like people and other pets but for a P. Muirinus specimen anything other than being a hyper-defensive, extremely skittish psychopath is an exceptionally well-behaved one.

Guest: “That tarantula is really pretty. Can I hold her?”
T Owner: “You do NOT want to hold that one.”
Guest: “Why not?”
T Owner: “It’s an OBT. Even I wouldn’t dare hold her.”

Tagged

To be bitten by a tarantula or other exotic arthropod, typically one’s own pet or the pet of someone one knows personally. If you work with large, venomous animals regularly sooner or later you will get tagged. Many T keepers can go years or decades without getting tagged once but eventually one that plays with fire will get burned, so to speak. The good news is that most spiders deliver dry bites as a warning when tagging their owners. One of the many things that makes OBTs perhaps the most difficult spider to keep is the fact that not only do they sometimes tag their handlers for seemingly no reason, they rarely deliver dry bites. Getting envenomed by a new world is no worse than a bee sting if the bee had a stinger a quarter inch long but old world bites are “medically significant”, inducing localized swelling, generalized pain and malaise and very painful full-body cramps that come and go for days on end.

T bro 1:“After 15 years I finally got tagged.”
T bro 2:”By which one?”
T bro 1:”It was that damn OBT. I feel like a shit sandwich rn ngl”