In the 1990 comedy-horror film "Arachnophobia," many large spiders appear on screen, but the movie's main villain is a large, hairy, bird-eating tarantula named The General, with a giant nest of babies and his numerous eyes on world domination.

Tarantulas have a bad rap because of their size, but this family of hairy spiders doesn't want to take over the world. Believe me, they've had plenty of time to try.

The name tarantula tarantula">is derived from wolf spiders which were found in the Taranto seaport of Italy in medieval times. Today, however, the name is more commonly applied to large, hairy spiders belonging to the arachnid family Theraphosidae . These tarantula species can typically be found in Central and South America, as well as deserts of the southwestern United States.

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