Tarantulas Are Out At Halloween, But They’re Not Trick or Treating!

[Omaha Steve]

http://wild.enature.com/blog/tarantulas-are-out-at-halloween-but-theyre-not-trick-or-treating?utm_source=eNature+Master+List&utm_campaign=beabae61ac-On_The_Wild_Side_October_201410_17_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fdc5c25bf0-beabae61ac-58235496


Posted on Monday, October 13, 2014 by eNature

Halloween is almost here and lots of folks are thinking about spiders such as tarantulas—as well as bats, ghouls and other scary creatures.

But it turns out that tarantulas have a lot more on their mind this month than trick or treating.

It’s mating time for tarantulas.

And the story behind tarantula breeding season is a tale of long journeys, deadly peril, violence and love. It’s an epic worthy of Homer.

Mating Season Is Here

Fall is the time of year when male tarantulas, having finally reached adulthood, come out of the burrows in which they have lived for the first 5 to 12 years of their lives.


Tarantual Hawk with prey
© Julio.ospinao

FULL story at link.

[petronius]

1. Very cool, thanks for the post! I was watching a tarantula march through the grass

just the other day and I thought it was odd - I'd gotten it in my head that they did their mating in spring (~April) rather than fall. Guess I'll start keeping a closer watch in the next few weeks...

[TwilightGardener]

2. Terrified of tarantula hawk wasps. They are huge and have extremely painful stings.

Not aggressive, supposedly, but I am on the verge of taking out some flowers and flowering shrubs to keep them from floating around my garden all summer.

[LiberalElite]

3. Wow I live

in a VERY urban place where I get excited seeing a robin pulling a worm out of the ground.