Yeh, those 6" little monsters are nasty!! We've had two so far in the past 2 months. They come up out of the septic tank. If their sting doesn't kill you, I'm sure that some god awful disease would.
By the way, Aunt Clara's has a wonderful recipe for a lite beer batter that should work well for the "T's". I personally would add a little extra salt, but singe them first over an open flame. Gets rid of most of those annoying little hairs.
In Britain we find that if you marinate them in Dominican rum (hope that's good enough to keep the thread going), they walk onto the bar-b-que, doing the merengue and they feed 100 people (one leg each).
Supermercado Playero in Sosua sells the little metal snips that smash and cut the legs open so you can get at the meat inside the Trantualas legs for about $100 pesos. They also have a nice little lemon/lime sauce para tarantulas in a plastic bottle for $50 pesos.
Yeah! we know - we all self-medicate but it does not always work.
More seriously Patbro, there usually are very few mosquitos on Cabarete beach and you will most probably not see any other little bug at all - depends where you stay and what you do. We live quite out of town on a farm and we seldom have problems with bugs - nothing that we cannot keep under control and certainly nothing worse than, say Florida.
Keep some Off or something like that handy, for tours into more jungly areas and you'll be just fine.
You won't see anything nasty of six or eight legged variety unless you go looking for them under old logs or in stoneheaps, none of which are around the resorts.
Now, if you want to see some, come to Santiago and we can walk or ride the golf course in the evening and look for some out hunting for dinner.