Tarantulas (BW)


 * ''Tarantulas is a Predacon from the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1/Beast Era continuity family.
 * His name is also officially spelled "Tarantulus".



Tarantulas is the scheming mad scientist of the Predacon crew. The type of mad scientist who experiments on living beings, cackling all the while, and then if things go wrong happily eats what's left as his midday snack. He was one of the Predacons to join Megatron during his theft of the Golden Disc and the search for Earth. In addition to being an utterly insane, sadistic sociopath (even by Predacon standards), Tarantulas has a record for treachery rivaled by few other Transformers. Tarantulas is actually an agent of the Tripredacus Council who is trying to coax the Beast Wars toward an unspecified goal, where neither Autobot or Decepticon won the Great War.

Tarantulas has a particularly notable hatred of the Vok aliens, a hatred strong enough to make him work to eliminate them by any means.

Japanse name: Tarans 

Toy Bio
Tarantulas is a sneeky, mysterious ninja feared across the galaxy. A master of the martial arts, he's suspected in the dissapearence of many earthlings and rumors swirl of giant cocoons where he stores his prey.

(Note: The techspec bios of the first wave of Beast Wars toys predate the development of the Beast Wars cartoon and its backstory. Instead they seem to present the characters as a direct continuation of the previous Autobot/Decepticon conflict with their battles taking place on present day, human-inhabited Earth, rather than in the distant past. Once the cartoon launched, the toyline adjusted itself to match that continuity instead.)

Optimus Primal VS Megatron pack-in comic
Tarantulas is guarding the Predacon's jungle-based genetics lab along with Megatron and Waspinator. When the Maximals discover them he engages Razorbeast in combat briefly before Megatron calls retreat and destroys the lab. (This story predates the Animated continuity and seems to be set on present day earth, see note above.)

Timelines: Dawn of Future's Past
As Megatron and his rogue band of Predacons escaped Cybertron in their stolen ship, the Darksyde, Tarantulas was in charge of scanning the disk for a desired set of coordinates. While Megatron was not watching, he was in secret communications with a member of the Tripredacus Council. (The reflections in his helmet show the silhouette of General Ram Horn.)

Using the decoded coordinates, the Darksyde opened a transwarp portal, which it and the Axalon passed through.

Beast Wars

 * Voice actor: Alec Willows (US), Yūichi Nagashima (Japan)

Beast Wars

 * Tarantulas (Deluxe, 1996)
 * Japanese ID number: D-4


 * Orcanoch (Microverse, 1997)
 * Part of the Microverse toyline, this orca transforms into a Maximal base. It came with tiny, non-transforming versions of Optimus Primal and Tarantulas.


 * Tarantulas (Deluxe Transmetal, 1998)
 * Japanese ID number: D-44


 * Tarantulas (Deluxe "Fox Kids" Transmetal, 1999)
 * This toy is a redeco of the Transmetal Tarantulas toy. A "FoxKids!" sticker on the packaging promoted the cartoon, which was playing on Fox at the time.


 * Predacon Tarantulus (Tenth Anniversary, 2006)
 * This toy is a slight redeco of the original Tarantulas toy. The toy more closely resembles Tarantulas' appearance int he cartoon.