Turn any Nook Miles Island into a Tarantula Island!
This is based on this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/nerdcubed/comments/fnxom3/turn_any_animal_crossing_island_into_an_infinite/
I was testing it out and thought I’d post about it with pictures!
1. Make sure it’s night (and ideally raining)
It must be night for this to work since tarantulas only spawn at night. Their spawn rate goes up if it’s raining but it’s not necessary. According to Critterpedia, tarantulas are available 7pm-4am, November-April. I’m playing in the Northern Hemisphere so this might be different if you are in the Southern Hemisphere!
2. Go to a Nook Island and remove EVERYTHING
Remove weeds, pick/dig flowers, break rocks, cut down trees and remove their stumps. This lowers the spawn rate for other bugs. Doing this in March, I had only 2 other bugs spawn: wharf roaches and tiger beetles. It’s important to constantly scare away other bugs to improve tarantula spawn rates.
Also your island layout may affect spawn rates and overall make your life easier or harder. My island was kind of annoying because I needed to use the Vault Pole and Ladder to repeatedly cross the river and go up on the cliff.
3. Catch tarantulas
Once everything is clear tarantulas should start spawning. Sometimes they spawn quickly, sometimes it’s dry for a bit. Constantly circle the island to load/unload other parts of the island so new tarantulas can spawn (not sure how the game actually does this under the hood lol)
It’s actually very easy to catch tarantulas, and you don’t need to make any fancy traps:
Approach the tarantula slowly
Hold out your net by holding A
Walk towards the tarantula until it goes up on its legs, then stop walking
Once it goes back down approach it and again stop when it stands on its legs
Repeat until you are close enough to catch it
See how it’s on it’s hind legs –v
Despite this though, I still fainted I would say ~7 times. In total I caught 28 tarantulas (I found another bug on the island that I didn’t have in the museum yet), and I think there’s no way to leave without one empty inventory slot.
I sold them at Nook’s Cranny the next day for 8,000 bells each for a total of 224,000 bells, quite the profit! It took me around 1.5 hours, though I wasn’t too focused on it and was just chilling listening to music.
HOWEVER: Apparently Flick buys tarantulas from you for 50% more, making the selling price 12,000 bells each, with a max profit (with 40 inventory slots) of 480,000 bells! That’s a lot! I haven’t tested this yet but my bf sent me this picture from somewhere on tumblr:
BONUS TIPS/ISSUES: From reading the reddit thread, some people have posted other tricks and issues, though I’ve not tested any of them:
Covering the stone parts with dropped wood etc. prevents wharf roaches from spawning. (Another user says they just spawn underneath so I don’t think this works)
This doesn’t work in Southern Hemisphere (could be a time of year thing)
If you have any comments/tips/etc. please let me know!
Also I’m still looking for a way to get bells that is easy and consistent like beetle farming in New Leaf. If anyone finds a way (without glitches, duping, etc.) let me know!
