Independent Minnesota US Senate candidate Marisa Simonetti, 32, has been sentenced to three months in the Hennepin County workhouse after throwing a live tarantula onto the staircase leading to her tenant’s living space in Edina. She was convicted of gross misdemeanour harassment and misdemeanour domestic assault and will serve her 90-day sentence on school and work release. The court also ordered her to serve two years of probation and submit a written apology to the victim.
Simonetti’s sentence comes as she campaigns for a seat in the US Senate, hoping to replace Tina Smith in the November 2026 Minnesota election. Her candidacy has drawn further attention after a video she posted of herself confronting a Girl Scout and the child’s mother over selling cookies without a permit went viral, putting her own conduct under public scrutiny.
They’re also incredibly delicate animals :(
For the curious, falling more than a few inches is often fatal due to a burst abdomen.
That seems… Unworkable in the wild? Are they a purely captive species at this point?
It’s just one of the downsides to having an exoskeleton while being so large. They’re a big bag of spider soup with a thin, fragile shell, and any cracks in their exoskeleton are permanent until their next molt.
Even a tiny wound has a high chance of them bleeding to death, and since they move through hydrostatic pressure, bloodloss also essentially paralyzes them.
So do they exist in the wild? How?
By sticking on the ground, mostly. They don’t climb and make webs like other spiders, they crawl and actively hunt or ambush prey.
The forest floor (with its thick layer of detritus) is also a much better cushion than concrete or rock, so they can more easily weather small falls in nature.
Gotcha
Oh no, poor thing