UPDATED JULY 7, 2008

Michael Jacobi operates his own Exotic Fauna Enterprises while also handling the sales and website for TARANTULAS.COM.

With over 30 years experience keeping and breeding reptiles and arachnids, he is also a writer, publisher and lecturer. Through his Exotic Fauna Enterprises, he publishes ARACHNOCULTURE magazine and produced the TARANTULAS IN THE TERRARIUM instructional DVD. His work with arboreal vipers includes the WORLD OF ATHERIS website. Professional activities also include website design and photography.

Michael is a member of the British Tarantula Society committee and was the keynote speaker at the BTS Lectures in February 2007. He has also lectured at the annual conferences of The American Tarantula Society and ArachnoCon, a 2006 and 2007 convention he also helped organize, as well as reptile events.

Michael was a professional animal dealer and breeder for over 20 years before closing “Michael Jacobi’s Spider Shoppe” and “Jacobi Herpetoculture” in the summer of 2006 in order to direct his efforts solely to publishing, education and travel. But in the summer of 2007, he relocated from Nashville and accepted a position with Northwest Zoological Supply north of Seattle, which is the parent company of TARANTULAS.COM. His stay in the Pacific Northwest was short-lived. The gloomy Seattle weather and a desire to return to friends and family in his hometown in the Chicago area influenced Michael to decide to return to northern Illinois at the end of May 2008. He continues to work with TARANTULAS.COM, while exploring other opportunities and focusing his energy on expanding his website design projects.

He has studied and photographed tarantulas in the field in the southwestern US, Mexico and Costa Rica. His experiences with arachnid and reptile captive husbandry began some 35 years ago, as an 8 or 9 year old boy keeping locally caught spiders and snakes in suburban Chicago. He has bred over one hundred species of tarantula, true spider, snake, lizard and frog.

Michael was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up and spent much of his adult life in suburban Chicago before moving to eastern Washington for a short time in 2000-2001 and then spending 6 years in Nashville, Tennessee before returning to Washington with a move to the Seattle area during August 2007. The cross-country moves didn't stop there. In May 2008 he returned to Chicagoland. His hobbies include acoustic guitar, disc (Frisbee™) golf, poker, reading, writing and spending time with his dog Taylor.