Arkansas, Watch Where You Step During Tarantula Mating Season

Not just Arkansas, the same warning goes out to seven other states including Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Colorado. The Texas Brown Tarantula mating season is upon us and the boys are looking for mates, and we don't mean their best buddies.

The experts say the male Texas Brown Tarantula will mate with about 100 females during the season, starting in August and running through October. (No wonder they look so tired!)

When you start doing the math and realize that each female produces 100s of eggs each year and can live 20 to 30 years... forget it, I can't do that math in my head, but you get the point. That's thousands of baby tarantulas over the female's lifetime. Fortunately, most of the giant hairy beasts don't make it to adulthood or we would be awash in them. Most are taken out by predators, and I don't mean for dinner and a movie.

Hey Big Boy - Tarantulove - Canva

According to an article on MSN.com, typically, the males only live a few years after reaching maturity, (see activity above), they emerge from burrows at night to hunt for food and search for love starting in late August.

Hey! Can we call it "tarantulove"? Yeah, you read it here first!

Tarantulas have notoriously bad eyesight which is good I guess, cause, have you seen them? Not pretty, except maybe to another tarantula, which is all that matters I suppose. There's someone for everyone.

What Should You Do If You See One?

Leave them alone, tarantulas are not aggressive spiders, even during mating season, unless maybe you have 4-inch wide hands that are very hairy... whatever you do, don't look them in the eyes and wink! No, I don't know how your hand can wink, remember, they have bad eyesight.

If you would like to learn more about the Texas Brown Tarantula (Aphonopelma hentzi), check out this video, she has a hobby I am not interested in:

I maintain what I consider a healthy arachnophobia. Sure, I have touched and let one crawl on me, but I don't want to make it a habit. Can you say heebie-jeebies?

Sure, I knew you could.

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Gallery Credit: Joe Cunningham