She Poked a Tarantula… Then This Happened | Zoologist Reacts

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hey everyone, welcome to the channel.

[00:00:01]Today we're starting with a lady who won't stop poking a tarantula and then finds out why you shouldn't. Let's dive in.

[00:00:17]This is incredibly stupid.

[00:00:32]This is wild. At this point, she's tormented it so much that it's decided to just lay on its back and play dead.

[00:00:50]was a male tarantula wandering around.

[00:00:52]You can tell by the hooks on its legs.

[00:00:53]It's a new world species cuz they were in Brazil. So, it's wandering around looking for a mate and they're vulnerable to predation at that time.

[00:00:59]And that's why it kind of tried all these tactics like flicking its legs up and going and playing dead and everything it could before biting really. It didn't want conflict in my eyes. Overall, that was just cruel to be honest.

[00:01:21]I have no idea what's going on in that clip. He's doing something really stupid. It's not a crocodile. It's an alligator. They're saying it's a crocodile. It's in California. And you don't get either of those in California.

[00:01:48]This is Dave Honibal who regularly contributes to the channel which is really appreciated. He's catching this black mambber and he has the worst luck with mambers. Every time he goes to get one, it seems it's in a roof or in a box or something weird. This one, look how angry it is afterwards. Apparently, it had killed a dog after being attacked by several dogs earlier in the day.

[00:02:27]>> He's right to wear all the safety gear.

[00:02:29]I tell you what, I would too. And I think the towel is a smart touch. Let me know in the comments if you know why.

[00:02:33]>> I got a band-aid. Should I band-aid him?

[00:02:35]>> I do. That would be pretty cool. Red on yellow.

[00:02:37]>> Red touches yellow, you're a good fellow. That's coralnake.

[00:02:41]>> Red on black, you'll be back. Red on black. A friend of jacks. Either red on black. Yeah.

[00:02:45]>> Please don't use this.

[00:02:46]>> Come back. But god, he's cut back.

[00:02:49]>> That'd be pretty cool. Why not? I'll hold him.

[00:02:51]>> Yeah, he's fine. He ain't hurt you.

[00:02:54]>> It's like a little cut.

[00:02:54]>> He's going to live.

[00:02:56]>> Maybe I think he go down in the shade so a bird don't come and grab him.

[00:03:00]A bird.

[00:03:01]>> Hell yeah. He's damaged. Bird.

[00:03:03]>> They smell it.

[00:03:04]>> You never seen big fish eat little fish.

[00:03:06]Big bird eat little bird.

[00:03:08]>> Like a damn worm to a eagle. He'll snatch his sucker up so quick.

[00:03:12]>> That was cool. That was such a contrast to the first clip of a tarantula. He's found a corn snake. It's been injured.

[00:03:17]Sometimes they can shake stuff like that off and he's, you know, he's got a band-aid. He's not a veterinarian, but he's doing his best, basically. Now, this next clip I think there are three things in here that I think are wrong or are not a good idea all around. But first, look at what the caption says. It says it's a Goliath bird eating spider.

[00:04:01]What is even going on here? What is happening?

[00:04:06]So, to me, it didn't look like a Goliath bird eater. To me, it looked like a salmon pink probably, but it shouldn't be on your face because they have verticating hairs. You really don't want those near your eyes anyway. And also, if you drop one that size, I mean, it is a goner. Basically, that's a terrestrial species. If you drop it, its abdomen is going to pop.

[00:04:27]The thud.

[00:04:34]That was a Pac-Man frog or horn frog sometimes people call them. And that thud is probably enough to tell most of you it's obese, but people debate this with this species for some reason because they're generally round. That one though, you could tell that the skin at the front there was stretched and the arms and legs are just completely enveloped in fat. So, you know, it is genuinely obese, not just a round frog.

[00:04:59]That was a leverback turtle showing a specialized spines that point backwards in its gullet and mouth to get the jellyfish in and not let them get out because that's its main prey. And the problem is that that's AI. The back of this leverback turtle isn't levering.

[00:05:11]The beak isn't right. It has two distinct notches on either side in real life. And if you look at this comment, there's this poor fella saying, you know, this is AI. I hate AI. And everyone just rips on him. They're saying he's uneducated, etc. for when it is definitely AI.

[00:05:27]>> These are checkered keelbacks and they have a particular destination in mind.

[00:05:38]This drainage channel might not look like much, but it will soon be full of fish.

[00:05:48]Fish traveling upstream to reach reservoirs must pass through a narrow gap.

[00:05:58]There the snakes await them.

[00:06:06]But the only thing they seem to be actually catching is each other.

[00:06:15]They don't have long to get their eye in.

[00:06:20]The fish are only here for a few days each year when water levels.

[00:06:24]>> If you're from North America, you might recognize the face of that snake. It might look familiar to you and that is because it is a member of the nature subf family of the colubraday family and they are related to your North American water snakes, guard snakes, ribbon snakes, earth snakes, crayfish snakes, for example. Also, they've got that kind of similar profile when you look at them.

[00:06:42]>> You want to see the only time it's safe to catch a rattlesnake? Come here.

[00:06:48]>> He can't turn around. He has to He has to get out first. It's a boy. Now he's out. So, we're going to let him out.

[00:06:55]There he goes. Whoop. Right down.

[00:06:59]Boy, tell me he doesn't know how to get rid of Get out of town. That's a weird thing to do with a wild rattlesnake, but the reason they have those forked double hemipenies is to do with proximity. One hemipini will always be closest to the correct side of the female when they're mating. And they're also double like that for redundancy. So each one is attached to a different testicle within the snake. So it has its own separate sperm supply. And in addition to this unusual anatomy, they also have spines on them because they don't have arms and legs. They mate for a long time. They have a very weak slow ejaculatory mechanism and they have to hook the the hemipenies in there with spines basically. So I hope this segment was embarrassing enough for you all.

[00:07:48]>> God, imagine falling in right after watching that.

[00:07:50]>> What a beautiful day in the Amazon.

[00:07:55]>> Oh my god, I know that sound from a mile away.

[00:07:58]That means get out of the water. Meet the giant river otter. These bad boys are apex predators and they're at the top of the food chain when it comes to the Amazon. But then again, it is the largest otter in the world, getting up to 6 ft long. And that's just one. They travel in groups of up to 20, which is how they've earned the nickname the river wolves. But what really makes them dangerous is the fact that they're extremely territorial and they won't back down from anything. They'll attack anacondas, black haymon, even jaguars.

[00:08:26]In fact, jaguars are known to avoid them. If jaguars are avoiding them, so am I. But it makes sense when you find out that they come stock with razor sharp claws and a bite force that's stronger than a lions. I think he's making an effort with his content these days, but I'm going to have to push back a little bit on the bite force claim in relation to their size. They're a much smaller animal. It is entirely possible that they could have potentially a stronger bite. You know, if you're looking at per weight, but a lion is much larger. It's a huge carnivore. It's got a much stronger bite overall because it's a [ __ ] lion, right? Who's this idiot going to be handling a scorpion?

[00:09:01]Crap. Hold the camera for a quickie. I put a bit of a reverse there.

[00:09:21]Okay.

[00:09:23]Got it. Ch running.

[00:09:26]>> Yeah. Roll camera for me.

[00:09:31]>> First catch of the day.

[00:09:34]>> That show off.

[00:09:38]>> That was pretty interesting. Proves two things actually. That video. First is that the southern African rock python is tough as hell. Even out in the ocean, it can look after itself. And second is that South Africans are fond of their wildlife. I see so many videos of South Africans trying to either capture, rescue, or get rescued snakes. It's It's disproportionately good, to be honest.

[00:10:06]>> I don't know why people want to stick their tongue out at animals all the time. It's It's a weird thing to do.

[00:10:10]That was a Teu. And they have a really strong crushing bite. Not because they're dangerous or they're predators or anything like that, but because they're omnivorous. And in addition to small animals, they'll eat like tough plant matter and carcasses and eggs and all kinds of things they need to rip or crush. So not something you want biting your tongue basically.

[00:10:39]Sad to see, but this tortoise is in care now. So it is being looked after. You saw a tortoise there with metabolic disease and a deformed shell, overgrown beak, nails, etc. That was dietary primarily perhaps. But the pyramiding on the shell, the way it goes all clumpy growing up top is quite interesting as well. Cuz when I was a kid, they used to say, "Oh, it's from too much protein in the diet." And now we know that it's much more multiffactorial. It's to do with UVB. It's to do with calcium balance. It's to do with temperature gradient. It's to do with having a humid microclimate like a nice little hide or borrow. It's to do with all these things and a balanced diet all together.

[00:11:16]>> Look at that. Bang.

[00:11:19]I got out of the car thinking I could, you know, just take a photo of this frill neck lizard on the road. Anyway, this is this is now where we're at. What are you doing on my leg?

[00:11:32]Please do not take a chunk out of my car. That would suck.

[00:11:38]Oh, this isn't good. Well, I've come to realization. I don't think Well, I hope it's not going to bite my head. I think it's just it assumes the camera and the hands are the issue. There you go. Move me camera. And uh it doesn't seem to worry about me and and my face, which is odd. So, um I'm appreciative of that, but also confused of how the hell we got here.

[00:12:03]>> I think he had a pretty good understanding of what was going on there. really you as I think those were Asian water monitors checking out a car which had gone into a ditch. Maybe there were some sandwiches inside. I don't know. But that one in particular looked extremely wellfed.

[00:12:39]This next one, I'm only going to show a couple of seconds of it. At first, it looks like something you think maybe this could happen, and then afterwards, you start to feel a little bit suspicious.

[00:12:58]>> So, what you see there is what appears to be a predation attempt between three king cobras. Now, this can happen. one bigger king cobra eating a smaller one, but it isn't a fight because when the males fight, they fight for dominance and they do it kind of like wrestling.

[00:13:11]This is neck biting and that says predation. However, when I look at the guy's account, he's got a lot of interactions with king cobras and something like this in the wild would be exceptionally rare. My suspicion, even though I don't have proof obviously, is that this is a setup scenario.

[00:13:42]I guess now I've just put it together today. I connected the dots. I didn't think about it before, but that is actually related in the same genus to the tririccolor hognos snake that we see in captivity these days.

[00:14:02]>> This is mangie and mangie means business.

[00:14:06]>> Means business.

[00:14:07]>> Oh yeah, dude. It's it's anything that's near him. Uh he wants to address it.

[00:14:14]He's incredibly defensive. So what he's doing, he's he's being challenged actually having a reasonable thought because he is a imported animal. He's wild caught. He could easily Watch your freaking hands.

[00:14:28]>> Yep.

[00:14:29]>> Cuz he's got, see all those uh things on his lower lip? Those sense heat. And so he can just blast your hand.

[00:14:37]>> And what would a bite feel like?

[00:14:39]>> Uh okay, so this he has incredibly huge teeth. And uh he like I don't want to even pick him up because he'll bite me no matter what I do. And I usually make friends. Look at Come here, Mie. He's like, so what you try to do, you just try to touch him.

[00:15:01]You're just trying to touch him to let him know it's okay.

[00:15:06]But he's really into anything near him.

[00:15:09]He bites the water. He bites. Whoa.

[00:15:13]>> Oh, he smudges cameras.

[00:15:15]>> That was Kevin McCurley of Nerd or New England Reptile Distributors. He was one of the people that pioneered morph breeding. And his adverts in magazines like Reptiles magazines got a lot of kids like me into actually keeping reptiles back in the day and he's still at it. And the emerald and basin treeboowers have some of the longest fangs or teeth I should say I guess of any snakes that aren't venomous in proportion to their size. And what a lot of people say is that if one bites you, you'll never forget.

[00:15:54]monkey just kicking people over for fun.

[00:15:56]You just can't trust monkeys, can you?

[00:15:57]Anyway, that was the video. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll be back again next week. Thank you very much.