Tarantulas are very large spiders, often with a leg span of six inches. They are usually black and are covered with hair. This imposing appearance has caused many myths about tarantulas, including the completely unfounded rumor that they are dangerous or even deadly to humans. They do have a weak venom, but it is much weaker than a bee for example. They are actually quite gentle and only bite humans if they feel menaced.

Their venom is not meant to protect them from enemies. Instead tarantulas kill victims that disturb their web by catching them with its legs and killing it with fangs and injecting venom. After death a digestive fluid is vomited onto the animal, and this in conjunction with the venom dissolves the soft parts. This tasty broth is then sucked down by the tarantula.

Mating occurs during the fall, and this is the time you usually see a tarantula. The spiders are very long lived, although as is typical in the natural world males fair poorly in the longevity game. Males usually don not live to be more than ten years. They mate for one season and die soon thereafter having completed their essential duty. Females, however, mate and produce young for many seasons and can live to be thirty years old. The female will hold her eggs through the winter. The following May or June she will lay up to 1,000 eggs, which hatch in a month or so. After several days in the burrow, the hatchlings emerge to make their way in the world.

Common Name: Tarantula
Latin Name: Aphonopelma chalcodes
Habitat: Desert Soil
Range: Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California