Residents of Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico are advised to be on the lookout for venomous male tarantulas, which will be dispersing between now and October.
Some arachnid and wildlife experts have called it a “mate hunt,” as males have been known to sometimes travel up to 20 miles in search of a mature female mate.
“They’re just looking for love,” said Dr. Lauren Davidson, an entomologist and spider expert in Houston, Texas. “Let them find a girlfriend.”
Dr Davidson is just one of many scientists hoping that public fears about spiders will not disrupt their ecologically valuable quest to breed more of their species.
The Lone Star State’s encounter with these mating tarantulas just wrapped up this month, as its female tarantulas now prepare to give birth to gigantic offspring via oozing egg sacs that can hold anywhere from 50 to 3,000 baby spiders.
Some arachnid and wildlife experts have called it a “mate swap,” as male tarantulas are known to sometimes travel up to 20 miles in search of a mature female in parts of the southwestern U.S. between August and October. Above, tarantula on Copper City Road in California
Above, Colorado State University PhD candidate Jackie Billotte releases a female tarantula near its former den after making a plaster cast of the tarantula’s den at the Southern Plains Land Trust’s Heartland Ranch Nature Preserve on September 24, 2022 near Lamar, Colorado.
Although the American tarantula is a venomous species, it tends to save its lethal toxins for prey such as beetles, grasshoppers, small lizards, mice, and even scorpions.
Humans can usually withstand a bite from these tarantulas without even having to go to the hospital, but that doesn’t mean this influx of male spiders is without danger.
Dr. Ritch Reading, vice president of science and conservation at the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster, Colorado, said Fox 21 Local News: Spider enthusiasts sometimes put themselves in danger to observe or photograph these moving tarantulas.
“When we go there, we see people on the streets, and the cars and trucks are moving pretty fast,” Reading said. “We see people on their knees taking pictures, and I don’t recommend that.”
“If a truck is coming at 65 to 70 miles per hour and you’re on your knees,” he continued, “you may not be able to avoid that vehicle.”
With that caveat in mind, Dr. Reading added that several local roads in Colorado were, in fact, the best places for naturalists to witness the migration for themselves.
Highways 109 and 350 near the La Junta area, he noted, have substantial tarantula populations and are good for sightings around dawn and dusk.
According to Dr. Reading, “Tarantulas use hydraulics rather than muscles to move their legs. If it’s too hot or too cold, the hydraulics don’t work very well, so they don’t move when the weather is really hot.”
“The best time to see them at this time of year is in the mornings and afternoons, when the wind is a little more moderate,” he explained.
When a male finds an ideal female spider to mate with, he will perform a courtship dance that includes tapping his legs on the female’s web.
If she is receptive, you might reciprocate by drumming.
Once successful fertilization occurs in a female tarantula, she builds a golf ball-sized egg sac, in which she will lay her eggs.
Above, a female tarantula releases a festering egg sac containing more than 1,700 babies.
Enthusiasts go out every year to observe male tarantulas on their mating journey.
She then protects the egg sac from predators until hundreds or thousands of tiny spiders hatch.
After mating, males usually die relatively quickly. Threats include predators, cars, and a general lack of interest in eating anything. In some cases, the female spider may eat the male.
Female tarantulas have a typical lifespan of 20 to 25 years, some experts say.
In the wild, tarantula wasps (the largest wasp in the United States) sometimes inject these spiders with paralyzing venom and drag them back into a burrow.
The wasp, always a female ready to lay eggs, then brings the paralyzed tarantula into the burrow hole and lays her eggs on top of the paralyzed spider.
When the eggs hatch several days later, the larvae feed on the still-living tarantula.