Before you go out and purchase an invertebrate I would suggest buying one of the following books:

This is by far the best tarantula guide to date. The current edition has 287 pages and it is very reasonably priced. It covers everything you could ever want to know and is loaded with photos and drawings. I cannot recommend this book enough! BARRON's also has a nice, though smaller, book on scorpions by Manny Rubio. Any good petstore should stock these books or at least be able to special order one for you. You can also usually find these on eBay.

Unfortunetly this book is out of print. It is not as big or comprehensive as the book shown above but it does have some awesome color plates of recommended species. This book is also somewhat dated as many of the scientific names have since changed. If you can find a used copy of this book I would highly recommend picking a copy up!

After you do your research you then have to decide what kind of tarantula you want. Do you want a terrestrial species (lives in or on the ground) or arboreal (lives in trees or high up off of the ground). For now we will discuss terrestrial. In addition to the Brachypelma smithi that I recommended on page one of this section I would also recommend these two species for beginners.

Grammostola rosea: The Chilean Rose Tarantula. This species, from Chile,  was the first to replace B. smithi as the "perfect" pet species. Though not as striking in appearance it is about the same size as smithi and has the same temperament. This picture unfortunetly does not do this species justice as it does have a beautiful rosey-pink sheen to the carapace. These spiders are easy to care for and live a long time (I also kept a female of this species that I received as an adult for 13 years). They are also very inexpensive. Price alone is a good reason to start with this species.

Grammostola aureostriata: The Chaco Golden Stripe Tarantula. This beautiful tarantula, from Paraguay,  just became available in the last 5 years or so and has the same temperament as the other 2 species recommended. It has long pinkish hairs with golden yellow striping on the legs. These spiders get really large too (reported to 8"). The only thing I noticed is that I am more sensitive to the hairs on this spider - I usually wear rubber gloves when handling it because my skin gets so itchy.

After deciding on a species the next step is to set up an enclosure for it. Hopefully by now you know where you will be getting your new pet from and will have an idea of size. For beginners I would recommend starting with an adult. As you gain experience I would highly recommend buying them as spiderlings and raising them (it is cheaper and alot more interesting to see how they change and develop from moult to moult). The following set-up recommendations are perfect for the three species shown assuming that the spider will be an adult at the time of purchase.

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