Hey, everybody. This is Ellen Weatherford. I'm here with Just the Zoo of Us with a special brand new friend today. This is T. Francis. Say hi, T.

Hi. Today we're talking about tarantulas, which is really exciting for me because I am only somewhat familiar with them. And so I'm really excited to learn more about them.

But before we talk about tarantulas, let's get to know you a little bit.

So can you introduce yourself a little bit for our friends?

Yeah, so hi, I'm T, and I am a huge spider nerd, which is why I'm here talking about spiders today.

I'm a bit of everything.

I do a lot of things. I'm an artist, but I'm also heading about spiders today. I'm a bit of everything. I do a lot of things. I'm an

artist, but I'm also heading back into academia. So I'm putting a lot of time and effort into

studying spiders in an official capacity at the moment. But in terms of what I do to sort of support

myself and make a living right now, I'm an artist. so I do a lot of illustration work, jewelry work,

all kinds of bits and pieces. So, yeah, I'm a bit of a mixed bag. And you have a very

impressive spider collection. Can you tell me a little bit about your spiders? Yeah, there's lots of

them. I have a spider room. So in my house, I have a converted

bedroom that acts as my studio and office, and that's where my spider collection is. And

basically, I have probably about four or five hundred spiders in there at the moment, I think.

Lots of different types. So several different types of tarantula and true spiders as well.

So true spiders are basically most things that aren't a tarantula.

So like huntsman spiders, wolf spiders, fishing spiders, spitting spiders, jumping spiders,

all kinds of different things.

So I've got stuff ranging from super, super tiny to absolutely

massive in there. And I love all of it. It's amazing. That's interesting that you said

that tarantulas are apart from true spiders. What makes a tarantula and not a true spider?

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