Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nerfs Tarantula, Other Rare Bug Spawn Rates

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has nerfed the spawn rate of several rare bugs, including the high-priced tarantula and scorpion. Last week's Animal Crossing: New Horizons update included several changes intended to balance the economy of the player's island. While players received notices that the interest rate for savings accounts had decreased, the game also quietly reduced the spawn rate of several species of bugs that tend to sell for large amount of Bells. The most noticeable bugs that received spawn rate nerfs were tarantulas and scorpions, which both sell for 8,000 Bells at Nook's Cranny. Scorpions will now only appear half as often on islands, while tarantulas received a spawn rate nerf of 33% to 66% depending on the month.

Other bugs that received a major nerf are the peacock butterfly, the man-faced stink bug, and the atlas moth, all of which can be sold to Timmy and Tommy Nook for 1,000 Bells or more. The peacock butterfly received a whopping 80% spawn rate nerf, making it much harder to hunt down and then sell for 2,500 Bells a bug. Meanwhile, the man-faced stink bug saw its appearance rate drop by 44% while the much less valuable normal stink bug saw its spawn rate increase by approximately 120%.

Some of these changes were due to the update standardizing spawn rates across various months. Previously, some bugs would appear much more often during certain months of its life cycle. Now, all bugs will have the same spawn rate during their spawn windows. However, it also seems that most of the spawn rate decreases were to bugs that sold for high prices at Nook's Cranny, so it seems likely that Nintendo wanted to decrease the amount of "bug farming" that some players used to quickly increase their Bells. This nerf (in conjunction with several other moves) has made creating infamous Tarantula Island farm a lot harder and less profitable.

Although players will have a harder time selling rare bugs, players can still play the Stalk market to quickly raise some bells, and it appears that the fish spawn rate hasn't changed with the new update.