Tiki Kiki Painted Lady
Tiki Kiki Painted Lady died on October 23, 2006. She lived a quiet life. She enjoyed hunting, eating, sitting in the corner of her terrarium, sitting beneath a large piece of bark, and sinking her fangs into anything that was placed in front of her.
The first time I met Tiki Kiki, she was hunting grasshoppers named after political figures–Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, etc.. She was not as interested in politics as she was the sport of the hunt. Sometimes she didn’t even consume her prey, but kept their bodies as trophies.
Her love for the kill was taken to extremes when she killed and consumed her mate, Dada. I never met Dada, but I hear that he didn’t deserve to be eaten. Needless to say, Tiki Kiki was survived by no relatives. She had no offspring, if she did she might have eaten them too.
I remember the time I transported Tiki Kiki in my car to our new home. She chose this time to demonstrate her ability to walk up the glass walls of her terrarium–previously I didn’t know she could do that. At every red light, I twisted around to check on her in the back. The last thing I needed was for her to get loose in my car.
Tiki Kiki enjoyed a meal of crickets and a drink of possibly tainted water before shrivelling up beneath a piece of bark and taking her final breaths. While there were initial suspicions of foul play, those have been put to rest.
