The “noisy cactus” That Turned out to Have Thousands of Tarantulas In It–Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
A lady buys an expensive decorative cactus to put into her home. One day, the cactus starts swaying and humming. Alarmed, the homeowner calls 911, happens to get an operator who knows what is going on and who tells the lady to evacuate her home immediately. The police send a five-man team who take the cactus outside and just in time. The cactus bursts and thousands of tarantulas are released. The nursery refunds the lady’s money and pays for her entire block to be exterminated. The story then says that cacti have been used by tarantulas as mass breeding farms for a long time.
The Truth:
This story is designed to give the creeps to people who hate spiders, but is not true. It is a long-standing urban legend. There is no documented case of this having happened and according to insect and cactus experts, including David Eppele of Arizona Cactus & Succulent Research, tarantulas breed in the ground, not in plants or trees.