Softball-Sized Tarantulas Are Crossing State Lines In Their Thousands Looking For Love

Ever wondered where baby tarantulas come from? It all starts with a big walk and it’s about to begin in parts of the United States. Around this time of year, males begin marching about in search of mates, sometimes in large groups and traveling significant distances. Who said romance was dead?

The movement of so many tarantulas at once has earned the phenomenon the name "the tarantula migration", but there’s a more lustful motivator driving their adventures.

“The truth is male tarantulas are moving around this time of year in the quest for a mate,” Andrine Shufran, Oklahoma State University (OSU) Extension specialist and director of OSU’s Insect Adventure in a release ahead of the 2023 season. “Mating season is determined by temperature and microclimates. It can be earlier or later because the males are waiting on the right situation and cues to get on the move, but typically mating season is from late August through October.”

Female tarantulas tend to stick to their burrows so when it’s time for making sweet, sweet tarantula eggs, they send out a signal. This involves releasing a pheromone to draw in lustful males, and they’ll travel a heck of a long way to find a fitting mate.

One such amorous tarantula species is the Texas brown tarantula, Aphonopelma hentzi . They tend to wander west of the Mississippi River to Colorado and New Mexico, across Louisiana, and – of course – Texas.

If you’re reading this from the region right now and don’t fancy a swarm of softball-sized visitors, the good news is that the Texas brown tarantula isn’t as mean as the media would have you believe. According to the Missouri Department Of Conservation, these tarantulas aren’t aggressive and their venom is comparable to that of a bee sting . Furthermore, a recent study discovered that they’ll even hang out with toads in just one of several examples of tarantulas being pals with other animals .

Elsewhere, the California black tarantula ( Aphonopelma eutylenum) and the San Diego bronze tarantula ( Aphonopelmus reversum ) are also on the move. Rural areas such as El Cajon, Ramona, and Poway can see particularly heavy eight-legged footfall as they march through in their thousands .

"Around this time, it’s like clockwork – right around the middle of August,” said Cypress Hansen, Science Communications Manager at the San Diego Natural History Museum, in a statement in CBS8 in 2022 . “There are two species of tarantulas in San Diego, and both start their mating season. Right around this time is when the males are leaving their burrows and they’re starting to look for females.”

So, if you see a squad of tarantulas marching across the road, why not give them an encouraging wave? Dating is rough, even for tarantulas.