Tarantula mating season is in full swing. Not everyone comes out alive

It’s a crisp night in the rolling hills above Los Angeles after the first fall rain.

It’s the night of the delicious tarantula – and it’s full of danger.

Every year, male tarantulas come out of their burrows in search of a lover. Finding someone can be fatal, whether they are on the subject or not. Women are known to dine with their friends.

“If the female is not receptive, you better run,” said Rodrigo Monjaraz Roydas, assistant curator of entomology for the La County Museum of Natural History. “Even if the female is receptive and they mate – after they mate, the male has to be really quick and quiet because otherwise the female can eat the male as well.”

In California, October is typically the prime visitor month for large, heron spiders. Natural cues are key, with the first autumn rains typically beginning in March. Experts suspect that males track pheromones to females when they are hungry.

While the arachnids inhabit areas like the Angeles National Forest and the Santa Monica Mountains year-round, mating season—when males are on the move—offers the best opportunity to find them. It runs from July to November, and the night time after the rains is the perfect time for the eight-legged occupants.

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All is fair in love and war

The tarantula’s love act begins with a courtship ritual. It can enter men Tapping on the ground or female web And – if he is receptive – he will respond with kindness.

According to Monjaraz Roydas, due to the threat of danger, male tarantulas use hook-like structures on their first pair of legs to capture females during coots. Another set of appendages, called pedipalps, are used to transport sperm.

A single act can produce hundreds of baby tarantulas—interestingly called spiderlings—although most do not survive in the wild.

Meet your local magicians

There are 10 species of tarantulas in the Golden State, including at least two that can be found in La County.

The county’s most common species is the California ebony tarantula Aphonopelma ethyleneumwhich can range from light brown to their namesake color. The leg length of the female reaches up to five inches.

There is also a desert habitat Aphonopelma iodiusis often found in the Mojave.

California is home to more than 1,300 species of spiders, and about 40% of all spiders in the country live in the state. As Monjaraz Roydas said, “It’s a lot of variety.”

What about those pieces?

Turn around the tarantula so it’s belly up and you’ll come across a noticeable fungus.

Like almost all spiders, tarantulas have venom. They use it to eat. However, it does not pose a threat to humans, according to Monjaraz Roydas, who compared it to the power of bee venom.

Typically, a stung tarantula will try to escape and hide, said Lisa Gonzalez, program manager of the Invertebrate Living Collection at the Natural History Museum.

“They’re not really very lethal animals,” she said. “And I can say that with confidence because I’ve been working with spiders since I was a little girl.”

But there is another defense mechanism. A spider can pull annoying hairs from the back of its abdomen, which feel like fiberglass or minute cactus spines.

A tarantula at the museum named Tico, recently brought in for educational purposes, began behaving after posing playfully for the cameras for some time.

In contrast, some parts of the tarantula feel almost like sable fur.

“They’re as soft as fish,” Gonzalez said.

Disadvantages of urban life

A male tarantula crawls along a gravel road in the late evening at the South Plains Land Trust’s Heartland Ranch Nature Preserve near Lamar, Colo.

(Helen H. Richardson/Media News Group/Denver Post via Getty Images)

According to Monjaraz Rodas, urbanization creates risks for local tarantulas during mating season. In their quest to find their mates, men can dive into backyard pools or sneak onto busy streets.

“But generally mountains represent good habitat for them, so they can live really well in those areas,” he said.

Eager to see the real deal?

Tarantulas can be seen in the wild—or, for now, in a natural history museum.

In November, the museum presents the open-air Spider Pavilion, a ticketed exhibit that allows visitors to walk among hundreds of spiders known as orb weavers and their intricate webs. There are also habitats associated with species including tarantulas.