It's late August, and summer is fading. While you're busy wondering where last year's Halloween decorations got to, some real-life horrors are emerging from the shadows in search of a little love.
Every year, swarms of Texas brown tarantulas (Aphonopelma hentzi) take advantage of the cooling temperature across the southern US to look for a mate. And 2024 shouldn't be much different, experts predict.
The fist-sized arachnids are commonly found across Texas and through New Mexico, with populations in Arizona's Sonoran desert.
Yet it's places like Colorado where the spiders really make their presence known.
Not that most people typically notice – curiously shy for an animal with such a fearsome reputation, they typically chill close to the ground in heavily sheltered spots, hunkering down in abandoned burrows by day only to emerge at night to dine on an insect or two or perhaps a small rodent.
That all changes from late August to October. Driven by deeper urges, male tarantulas rise from the shadows and brave the open ground to seek attention from any willing and able female … who presumably do the tarantula-equivalent of swiping left and right as they search for the perfect mandibles to cozy up to. Or consume, whatever the vibe happens to be that night.
It's nothing short of a busy time for the happy arachnids, with males covering up to roughly a kilometer (just over half a mile) to do the do with more than 100 females in a season.
Fertilized egg sacs then deliver a thousand or more newborns, taking around 45 to 60 days to gestate under the mother's watchful eye. Err, eyes. All eight of them.
What is viewed as a late spring break party season by the hordes of giant spiders might be regarded as an early Halloween horror show by arachnophobes, though being the size of a baseball should be regarded as a good thing – they're far less likely to slip through tiny gaps to wander aimlessly into indoor spaces.
Docile unless provoked, the tarantulas will rear and show their fangs when upset, and if handled poorly could give a painful nip. Their stiff bristles can also irritate our skin and eyes, especially when cast off in a defensive mist of spider fuzz.
So should you find a desperately-seeking fuzzball on the living room floor (and polite insistence that it ought to leave doesn't work), try turning a bowl and a sheet of card into the spider-equivalent of a five-star Uber service and dropping it off outside.
Given the male tarantulas live a mere 10 years – far shorter than the female's decades-long lifespan – and only mature around age 8, they'll no doubt appreciate the helping hand to find romance before time runs out.
Of course not everybody has an aversion to these magnificent creatures, with towns like La Junta in Colorado actively celebrating the tarantula Mardi Gras each September.
With the region's spiders declining in recent years – potentially as climate change, unregulated collection, and habitat loss exact the unusual toll – the randy arachnids could certainly use a little love themselves.