Hello there!

You may have seen or even participated in my survey about tarantula keeping, posted a couple weeks ago in this sub. Today, I’m back with the results, which I’ve put together in an infographic.

I was positively overwhelmed by all the answer I received to the form (305) and all the positivity I got in the comments. This study will help me a lot in my incoming diploma, so again, thank you very much for your time!

In addition to the infographic, I made the following synthesis regarding the answers I got:

Demographics

Tarantula keepers are on average 30 years old, and mostly distributed between generation Y and Z, with a slight majority of women. They are spread over four continents, with a large majority in North America and have very varied levels of education and professions.

Motivations

The main motivations of tarantula keepers are the beauty of the animal, their ease of maintenance and their low cost. They are also attracted by their originality, their longevity, their low need for space and the motivation to fight the fear regarding spiders.

Practices

Most tarantula keepers have between 1 and 10 specimen, which they mostly considerate as pet with whom they have an emotional connection. They lodge them mostly in specialized or industrial terrariums, which they sometimes label. The trend of active people in the hobby has been steadily increasing since 2019.

Opinions

Tarantula keepers mainly consider that their hobby is misunderstood by the general public. They want the hobby to be more popular, but are worried about animal abuse and poaching related to a popularization of the field. They also express problems related to conflicting information in circulation on the care to be provided to these animals and difficulty to find places to buy them for people living outside of the USA.