As many players will know, one of the fastest ways to earn bells in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is to clean out a mystery island and capture many tarantulas (worth 8,000 bells each) from it. This is thanks to the way that insect spawns work in the game – where a completely bare ground with no flowers, trees, or rocks will force the spiders to spawn more often. Sadly, however, a new development in April is ruining this lucrative trick for many players.

In particular, a new insect that appears from April onward is making it harder for tarantulas to spawn on any mystery islands with ponds or rivers. That pesky insect is the one you see above: the Giant Water Bug.

Unlike other insects, the giant water bug spawns in water instead – swimming around randomly. The annoying bit is that they don’t run away when the player approaches near, so players have to catch and release them continuously if they want tarantula to eventually spawn. As a result, farming for tarantulas has become more time-consuming and leads to more nets breaking overall.

Unfortunately, this reduces the number of viable mystery islands that one can transform into a tarantula farm. For now, only specific mystery islands like bamboo islands (which have no ponds or rivers at all) remain useful for this money-making trick during April.

Have you encountered the Giant Water Bug, yourself? Has it ruined your tarantula farming trips? Feel free to share with us below.