Exotic Fauna
Exotic Fauna is the home of the Arachnoculture E-Zine and other reptile and arachnid resources. It is the web home of Michael Jacobi, the creator of The Tarantula Bibliography and The World Of Atheris educational websites and a web designer specializing in exotic animal sites.
Michael Jacobi
Michael Jacobi operates Exotic Fauna Enterprises while also handling the sales and website for TARANTULAS.com. His experience keeping and breeding reptiles and arachnids is wide-ranging. Over the course of 35 years he has specialized at one time or another in pythons, arboreal vipers, geckos and tarantulas, and has also worked extensively with chameleons and frogs. He has bred over one hundred species snakes, lizards and frogs, as well as several dozen species of tarantula.
Michael is a writer, publisher, lecturer and web designer. Through Exotic Fauna Enterprises, he published ARACHNOCULTURE, an international print journal for keepers of tarantulas and scorpions that has now been replaced by an online e-zine version. In 2006 he filmed the TARANTULAS IN THE TERRARIUM instructional DVD, which is now available as a QuickTime movie for computer with excerpts appearing on YouTube. His work with arboreal vipers includes the WORLD OF ATHERIS website. He also has a strong interest in field research and accompanied renowned tarantula authority and British Tarantula Society Chairman Andrew M. Smith on a 2006 expedition to Costa Rica where they found and studied 14 species of theraphosid spider.
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 reptile events and the annual conferences of The American Tarantula Society and ArachnoCon, a 2006 and 2007 convention he also helped organize.
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 to focus on publishing, education and travel. However, in the summer of 2007 he returned to animal breeding and sales when he relocated from Nashville to accept a position with Seattle-based Northwest Zoological Supply, the parent company of TARANTULAS.COM. His stay in the Pacific Northwest was short-lived. Although he continues to work with TARANTULAS.COM, he has now returned to the upper midwest and conducts his business from Wisconsin.
Michael was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1964 and grew up and spent much of his adult life in suburban Chicago. In 2000, he moved to eastern Washington for fourteen months before spending six years in Nashville, Tennessee. He returned to Washington with a brief move to the Seattle area during August 2007. The cross-country moves didn't stop there. In May 2008 he returned to Chicagoland for a couple of months before moving again, this time to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Michael is divorced and has no children. When he's not outdoors looking for critters or indoors staring at a computer screen, his hobbies include disc (Frisbee™) golf, acoustic guitar, reading, writing, poker and spending time with his dog Taylor and parrot Jesse.
