An arachnophobe has cured her fear of spiders during the lockdown and has now adopted 22 tarantulas.
Lynn-Anne Price, 47, from Pontardawe in Wales, grew up petrified of the eight-legged creatures and said she used to become physically sick just at the sight of a arachnids.
But during lockdown she overcame her fear, educating herself through online videos.
The newbie spider enthusiast now has 22 tarantulas and says caring for them has helped to improve her mental health.
As a child, Lyn and her family lived in fear of spiders, with her brother and mother both also suffered with arachnophobia.
Her 12-year-old daughter Amber was also frightened of spiders.
Determined to break the cycle, Lyn decided to learn more about her fear and spent her lockdown time at home watching videos online. She slowly found herself falling in love with the vibrant colours associated with tarantulas.
She said: "When that happened and we spent so much time at home, I started to notice my daughter was also showing signs of being an arachnophobe.
"I didn't want her to live in constant fear similarly to what I had growing up - you can't shy away from them as they're so common and part of everyday life.
"I figured the more I knew about them, the less scared I would be of them and decided to watch Youtube videos and it just grew from there. Now I have 22 tarantulas in different shapes and sizes and I absolutely adore them."
Having been diagnosed as bipolar in 2010 following the passing of her father, Lyn highlights that the caring of her growing tarantula family has significantly helped her mental health alongside creating a spider enthusiast in both her and Amber - who currently has her own two pets.
Lyn isn't the only person to notice the positive impact on mental health of a fascination with eight-legged creatures, with other enthusiasts also seeing something similar after their own diagnoses.
"The spiders have helped calm me, I find the whole process of caring for them relaxing and the confidence I have after overcoming my fears has really helped me realise I can do things I had originally thought were never possible" said Lyn.
"It's no different to a gold fish," she added, saying the pets were low maintenance when compared to her charming little pug, who takes particular interest during feeding, as it tries to pinch the locusts and bugs fed to the spiders.
The family have now become full-on spider enthusiasts and want to raise awareness that the creatures are often demonised in society and overlooked when compared to other animals under threat from the likes of deforestation.
"I think tarantulas and spiders as a whole are hugely misunderstood, I grew up in the 80s and they're used in the likes of horror films and negatively in children's programmes as this evil thing and that they're big and black.
"There's so much more to them, there are colours you wouldn't have imagined associated with them - they are beautiful creatures and it never occurred to me how many different species there are.
"When you think of conservation and protecting species, people go to the cute animals like pandas or dolphins, but tarantulas are beautiful in their own right.
"We also want to make people aware that when they move that daddy long legs (another creature with long legs lots of people are scared of) outside - you are effectively killing it."
The family want to encourage people to face their fears instead of shying away from them and highlight the positive impact tarantulas have had on them.
