About Us & Contact Information

The Malaysian Tarantula Society, often referred to as MTS was established officially on the 1st of January 2005 by its founders, a group of tarantula and exotic pets' enthusiasts. Many people were sceptical about the success of MTS in Malaysia because the interest and knowledge regarding Tarantulas' as pets and other exotic pets in Malaysia are not popular. However, this serves as a challenge to the founders of MTS, and from there on, a common mission fell in place, which is to gather fellow enthusiasts around Malaysia as well with enthusiast around the world. Together we would then spread the knowledge and educate our fellow Malaysians about the true facts about Tarantulas and dismiss all myths and misconceptions that has been delivered through media all the while.

The growth progress has been relatively slow, but with our loyal supporters, we continued to grow as time goes by. With hundreds of members and generous sponsors, we are able to keep the society moving forward.

Keeping Tarantulas' as pets

To keep or not to keep. Many people in this advanced society we live in have lack of knowledge on Tarantulas. Commonly, tarantulas' are associated with fictional media shown on tv shows where they chase you down the street, killing people by injecting lethal venom and sucking blood out. But all these are NOT TRUE and MTS exist to educate people and set the records straight. As for this debatable question, to keep or not to keep, it has been going on since the day the society was founded. Often we receive emails and phone calls from people disagreeing with the idea of keeping tarantula as pets. "Tarantulas' belong to the wild and should not be kept in captivity" is one of the most common quote we get. On the other hand, we at MTS, share one main opinion that contradict with the quote, which we think that keeping tarantulas' as pets is not bad afterall. The answer to such debatable question is primarily based on each individuals' opinion. As a matter of fact, the survival rate of spiderlings in the wild is just a mere 15% (research SR:2006). This means only 15 out of 100 offsprings of the tarantula will survive in the wild. Corresponding to this, the society encourages responsible and controlled captive breeding. We do have breeding projects every now and then. For captive breeding, the survival rate of the offsprings increases significantly if they are taken care by a keeper who has sufficient knowledge on how to care of them.

Although tarantulas have not been pushed to the verge of extinction yet, but at the rate of growth of the 'Dead Bug Trade', it is just a matter of time for their population to gradually decrease. Captive breeding also allows the pet trade to trade only with captive bred livestocks and not by collection of the wild ones because we strongly discourage wildlife exploitation. This might sound contradicting with our practices, because we would have to collect them from the wild before we could even start breeding them. However, we have tight rules on collection and individuals' principles, where when we go out to the field and collect, we only collect what we need and not to ruin the entire colony and from time to time, the society tend to work on placements of captively bred tarantulas into the appropriate wild. Another fact that we have taken into consideration that supports our opinion of Tarantulas as pets is that Tarantulas' are very simple living creatures. They do not go through emotions and so on and their lives expectation is to live on by getting food every now and then, to reproduce as well as keeping themselves safe from predators. Therefore, we can dismiss the remark claiming that keeping them in tanks/captivity is cruel as they will be unable to adapt to the environment. We strongly encourage all our members to read up and study the basic husbandry of keeping tarantulas before they actually get one. With our active forum where all members interact, learning how to keep them in good condition is just a few clicks away.

The bottomline would be; with proper education and exposure to these fascinating creatures, we broaden our perspectives and see them differently and at the same time, learn how to appreciate them. Join our community to learn more about the creatures we've been talking about and if you have any doubts or questions at all, feel free to contact us. Afterall, this is the main reason why the Malaysian Tarantula Society exists.

The MTS Tribal Logo

The Malaysian Tarantula Society tribal design logo was was created during the establishment of the society. It was inspired by the tribal tattoo art design and was put together by Mark Pennell, the advisor for MTS from the British Tarantula Society.

Symbolic Significance;

Rounded society name : The unity of enthusiast around Malaysia and the world
Tribal Font and Design : Primitive spider, symbolises the mysteriousness and old misconception that has been passed on for genetations.
Overall Impression : Primitive misunderstood creature surrounded by enthusiast with a mission to protect and educate to dismiss all sinister properties associated.

Something to pass around ...

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