Animal Phobia 22nd Feb (46)

Animal Phobia 22nd Feb,

I managed to organise a meeting with my sisters friend called Lauren Mcubbin who was also a Fine Art student several years ago based in Howard gardens. She now goes around schools to teach children about wild beasts and animals from tarantulas, to stick insects and rats etc she had a variety of animals and it was fascinating learning about them.

I was not sure what she owned and I was in awe when she began showing me and my sister. We began with her Chile Tarantula, this was about a hand size pink fur like spider. It was quite beautiful in many respects and I was very nervous to interact with this spider and I was quite excited and slightly terrified to touch it.

I found the main phobias on my lost were spiders, rats and snakes followed closely with moths.

©Jamie Jones

We placed her on a glass table and soon afterwards Lauren tried to feed her a live cricket, it was fascinating to watch but to our dismay she did not move for five minutes until she suddenly took a interest in the cricket and devoured it, it was amazing to watch as its something I had never witnessed before. She would use her venom in her fangs to paralyze it before sucking out all of the insides leaving only the shell.

©Jamie Jones

I captured all the footage beautifully while she ate the cricket which I plan to edit slowly and upload onto Youtube.

After watching her be still for over two hours I felt confident to hold her, theres parts in the video where she actually spins a web under herself.

Secondly I held a corn snake which measured out to about five foot, she was very calm and beautiful in colour and texture.

Lastly was the one animal I felt a little surprised at, I was introduced to a naked rat which I did consider was a naked mole rat. This was not the case as it was a rat with no fur which felt like wrinkly skin.

I grew quite attached to him once I got used to the feeling of him sitting on my shoulder and on my neck, he was quite large as well as his tail fell half way down my back.

Some people I have shown my footage of struggle to even get through several seconds as he is quite large in size but hes quite unique and not the stereotypical rat we see everyday. I have some wonderful footage of him eating popcorn on my shoulder and him nodding asleep, its quite cute in many aspects and I did grow fond of him.

My next task is to edit my footage as I have so much I will have to think carefully about certain angles and what I want to portray to the audience. I would like to thank Lauren again for helping with my project I cannot wait to share it with people and study their reactions.

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