Plains boy first to show spider at county fair

One of the reasons people go to the Sanders County Fair is to see the high caliber animals, the cream of the crop specimens. Many are cute, fuzzy and cuddly.

John McNamara will be taking a fuzzy creature to show at the fair this year, but he might be the only one to consider his animal cuddly. It's a 6-year-old tarantula he named "Uma Fang" and he's showing his arachnid in the 4-H pocket pet competition at the fair, slated for 1-4:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 31, in the Home Economics Building.

This is the first time for a 4-H member to show a spider since Juli Thurston took over as extension agent in 2016. She said that the pocket pet entries are normally household pets, such as hamsters, parakeets, gerbils, and white mice. While last year the judges weren't excited that he took his pocket pet snake from its container, Thurston believes the uniqueness of his entry this year might make it easy to find judges, although she added that they might not want to touch it. Thurston also said he's the only 4-H'er with a pocket pet project this year.

The 10-year-old McNamara has no problem touching his favorite spider and takes it out of its cage on a daily basis, as he has done since he bought the 5-6-year-old pink toed tarantula two years ago. "It's calm and she's always sweet," said McNamara. "It's so interesting the way they move. They don't have any muscles, so they pump blood to their legs to move. That's a lot of blood," said McNamara, who has five tarantulas, which all live in his bedroom with a menagerie of other exotic animals - 13 snakes, four cockroaches, two leopard geckos, an anole lizard, and a scorpion, which he's already planning to use as a pocket pet next year.

McNamara has been with the South Side Sparks 4-H club for three years and has 11 projects this year, including cat, sheep, poultry, baking, cake decorating, knitting, outdoor adventures, wildlife, and photography.

He and his mother, Carissa McNamara, attended the Big Sky Reptile Expo at the Hilton Garden Inn in Missoula in July and went home with new critters, including his black forest scorpion, which he named "Sassy" and is teaching it not to pinch him. "I'm trying to train him that I'm the safe place so he won't pinch me," he said. He's thinking about possibly using his new baby milk snake "Jack" as a future pocket pet project, but it has bitten him multiple times, he said. His new baby python, "Sabrina," which he named after the old television show, "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" also went at him. "She struck at me once, but it was just a warning strike, but she warmed up to me in a few minutes," said McNamara.

He hopes to breed the cockroaches for snake food. The four he bought at the expo for $2 apiece are named "Skitter," "Hissy," "Calm," and "Big Papa," the largest of the group, unless he discovers it's a female; then he'll rename it "Big Mama," which he's considering using for a 4-H project at some point. He doesn't hold "Rica," his new striped-knee tarantula, a lot because it's "notoriously fast," he said.

McNamara's bedroom is nearly wall to wall aquariums housing his arachnids and the other creatures. His mother fully supports her son's exotic pet hobby and she has held some of his snakes, but she won't hold the tarantulas. "I used to not even be able to be in the same room, but now I can be next to him while he's holding them," said Carissa, who added that he's been fascinated with bugs and other small creatures since he was in diapers and it shows no sign of diminishing.

His mother and father both help him with the feeding, which isn't done every day, but takes awhile, she said. Even with a bedroom full of them, she said he's always catching bugs, frogs and lizards at their ranch. And he's not finished. He has his sights on various other peculiar pets. His mother is not sold on his desire for a glass frog, but she said she'll probably eventually give in.