Polly the Mexican Red Knee

We took Emily to the London Zoo for her birthday out...http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo//

The weather was great and we enjoyed the whole day. Highlights were the Okapi (significant memories for the girls as the first Okapi came to Yokohama when we lived there), the poison dart frogs, (blue, red, yellow and green, gorgeous.), the aquarium and the meerkats. Emily was keen to see the Spider Show and I forced myself to join in as I have a well ingrained fear of them, the bigger they are the more scary, and hoped to overcome it in some small way. After 20 minutes I was converted...well almost!

Polly, the Mexican red knee tarantula was the star, she sat completely still on her keepers hand while we were told all about her habitat, life cycle and her character. There was a question and answer session and I got close enough to take a lovely photo of her. There is no way I would want a spider as a pet, nor would I encourage Em to keep one, but I was reassured that some spiders are quite good at just keeping to themselves and that they mean us no harm!