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Today on Animal Fact Files, we’re talking about tarantulas. You can stay up to date on new releases by subscribing! Ban Kasai requested tarantulas - let’s see what we can learn!

Tarantulas may be the most recognizable spiders in the world. Their gentle nature has made them easy to work with for filming scenes in movies that might otherwise shed them in a negative light, but there’s a reason these gentle giants are so lovingly kept by spider enthusiasts around the world. I mean, they are pretty freaking awesome. Tarantulas are natively found on every continent of the world except one, and I’m sure you can guess which that is. They prefer warm tropical, subtropical, and arid regions, and they live in rainforests, deserts, and dry areas of open landscape. It’s not uncommon to find a tarantula burrowed in the ground or hiding under a rock, but some even make their homes in trees. This behavior is risky business because a fall from less than a foot (30.48cm) can mean death for a tarantula, but that’s why they come equipped with retractable claws just like a cat! Tarantulas don’t build webs the same way many spiders might, but they do use silk for numerous reasons. Some tarantulas line their homes with silk mostly likely in an effort to strengthen the walls of their space; others leave silk strands outside their entrances which act as tripwires to alert the spiders of potential prey and predators; silk also comes into play with mating.

Tarantulas may not reach sexual maturity for years depending on the species. When they are ready to mate, a male will construct a web and deposit his sperm therein at which point he will gather it up and go searching for a mate. He’ll wander around until he’s able to locate a lady and he’ll court her. He’ll use his pedipalps to offer up his package to the female and then make a fast break for the exit as a female tarantula may eat her mate if given the opportunity. For most males, it’s the end of the line after this as they will perish within months of this act. However, females can live to be older than thirty depending on the species, and they’ll mate multiple times within their life. The female will create an egg case to house anywhere from less than 100 to up to 1,000 eggs, and she’ll protect it for two months or so it takes for the babies to develop. After a few weeks, the babies will disperse into the night. I say the night because tarantulas are mostly nocturnal.

Tarantulas may leave their burrows at night to scout for food items such as insects, frogs, snakes, and even birds depending on the species. They use venom to kill their victims and the venom helps to liquefy the meals so the tarantulas can slurp them up. It might sound freaky, but tarantulas are pretty harmless to humans. A bite from one of these spiders can cause pain, swelling, and redness at the injection sight, but for the most part it’s no worse than a bee sting. What harm they can cause is brought about by the species that flick their body hair into the faces of their advisories. One man who owned a pet tarantula found out from his eye doctor that his irritation and light sensitivity was caused by tiny tarantula hairs lodged within his eyes. Admittedly, that’s a little unsettling.

In the wild, tarantulas are eaten by lizards, snakes, birds, and even wasps who do something similar to tarantulas as the cicada killer wasps do to cicadas that we discussed in a previous episode. Some species can be picked up by wasps because they’re not all the size of goliath bird eaters, the largest tarantulas. In fact, the smallest tarantulas are barely more than a tenth of an inch long! That’s pretty tiny! But that’s what we mean when we say there is a large diversity of tarantulas. Here are some examples of the kinds of colors in which they appear.

For more facts on tarantulas, check out the links in the description. We’d like to give a big thanks to Jethro Reading for allowing us to use images of his beautiful girl Meg in today’s episode. You can find a link to Jethro’s blog and twitter account in the description. Give a thumbs up for Meg and thanks for watching Animal Fact Files!