In Southern Italy, there is like with all places within that lovely country, a city that holds a center of ancient art and history that is so beautiful and so rare.

It's a troubled city, large and so polluted that it holds the title of "the most polluted city in Italy" and the title of "the most polluted city in Western Europe. I'm sure that's not a reputation it wants, but is a fact none-the-less.

Out of this city, comes a resident that many of us are familiar with -- the Tarantula, who got it's name from the city, because that is where they first were found. Like the city of Taranto, they have a reputation that either repulses or fascinates, depending on the eye of the beholder.

Not all of it's reputation is based on fact. Originally it was believed when these spiders were first discovered that they produced a dancing mania in their human victims. Tarantism was a common malady of the Middle Ages.

Probably it was an epidemic of emotional hysteria, a nervous affection brought about from seeing these somewhat frightful creatures. At any rate, people afflicted believed themselves to have been bitten by the Tarantula spider.

They danced with frenzy until they fell exhausted. Music was supposed to be a relief to their wrought-up feelings, so various melodies sprang into existence for the benefit of sufferers. From them we get the Tarantella of modern music.

How deadly the bite of the spider was we do not know, but it is certain that so-called Tarantula spiders in South America have bitten people and that people have died there.  The exact numbers of deaths each year from the bite of the tarantula is not known, however, the odds are more likely that you would die from a bee sting than one of them.

However, but whether form fright, from fear, or actually from the spider's poison, wasn't determined for a long time in science. The fact is as ugly as the bite of a tarantula may be, it is seldom deadly to humans. The bites can cause horrible pain, nausea, and sweating, along with great feeling of illness.

Naturalist Henry Fabre found that bees and wasps die at once from the bite, that a sparrow survives but three days, and that a healthy mole expires thirty-six hours after being bitten.

Tarantulas are actually cousins of the more familiar Trap door spider. The Trap door spider belongs to the same class as the dreaded bird-eating spiders. However, the tarantulas are the giants of the order -- huge hairy brutes six or seven inches across the legs.

They live in trees or in earth-burrows, and weave exceedingly strong webs. In these they are said to catch birds and tiny mammals such as mice. Their bite is excessively poisonous. When they have made the fatal bite, they such the blood of the bird or beast just as our garden spider sucks the blood of a bluebottle. Their brittle hair also causes intense irritation of the skin.

I personally have had a close albeit not by choice association with tarantulas as my younger brother was quite fond of them and kept them as pets. Later, as an enterprising teen, he sold them embedded into acrylic paperweights to tourists passing through our desert home.

The Goliath Tarantula just because of it's size and general appearance is enough to strike fear in any human or non-human heart. It is primarily known for its occasionally culinary preference for eating birds. Most of the time, however, it dines on insects, frogs, mice, and small lizards.

This spider hisses loud enough to be heard fifteen feet away. This isn't a result of it having vocal cords, but by rubbing the hairs on its legs together.

They are native to:

• Brazil
• Chile
• French Guiana
• Mexico
• Venezuela

Compared to other varieties of tarantulas, they are extremely aggressive and not recommended as a pet.

Note: In Venezuela, the Piaroha tribe consider them a delicacy and often roast then for a spur-of-the-moment high protein snack in the jungle.