TARANTU-LOVE

Saving Colorado’s ‘charismatic’ spider

This time of year on the southeastern plains of Colorado, hundreds of tarantulas emerge out of their dirt-caked homes at dusk and crawl for miles in search of a mate.

Not much is known about the behavior of these eight-legged creatures, but last weekend, a team of scientists from the Butterfly Pavilion made the trip to the Southern Plains Land Trust’s 43,000-acre Heartland Ranch looking for answers.

How do they survive the frigid winters? What do their burrows look like? When they make their fall migration, how many die on the highways?

Entomologists installed cameras to map the infamous spiders’ annual mating route. Plaster of Paris solution was mixed and poured into the spiders’ burrows to make molds of their apartment like habitats.

Pavilion employees set up 10 cameras along Colorado Highway 109 in hopes of pinpointing exactly where dark waves of the fuzzy insects cross every September

and October on their love quest.

“It’s like online dating … the males get out and wander around,” said Pavilion Target Species Manager Lorna McCallister.

Highway 109 runs right through their migratory path, and many of the arachnids are so slow they get squished. Spider-watchers would like to see the Colorado Department of Transportation build a tarantula crossing. The idea would be to create a basketball-sized tunnel underneath the road.

The Pavilion would like to install nets to coax the half-blind, wandering males to follow a net boundary outside, which would lead them into the tunnel where they would eventually crawl out on the other side home free.

“Scientists are doing their darndest to prevent them from becoming endangered,” said Rich Reading, the Pavilion’s Vice-President of Science and Conservation.

But the Colorado Department of Transportation’s robust wildlife mitigation treatment is all about driver safety, not tarantula safety.

A spokesperson told The Denver Gazette that there are no plans at this time to build tunnels underneath the highway.

“At this stage of the game, CDOT’s involvement is minimal, but we are in contact with the Butterfly Pavilion, Fish & Wildlife Services, as well as the other agencies in the La Junta area,” said CDOT Southeastern Region Spokesperson Michelle Peulen.

She said there’s still room for CDOT to get involved with “potential grants” once the research is complete, but at this time, even a Tarantula Crossing sign is out of the question.

Still, Butterfly Pavilion scientists are fighting for the invertebrates.

They say males don’t get much thanks for their traveling troubles, as they only live an average of ten years, compared to females, who can last for up to 40.

“Females either eat them or the males grow hooks to prevent them from getting eaten. But then those appendages make it impossible for them to molt, so they die,” said McCallister, who loves tarantulas so much that she has dedicated her life to studying them.

“They’re so charismatic,” she says. “They have their own personalities.”

First annual tarantula celebration

The town of La Junta sees cash in spidey-cuteness.

Next month, the town will host a first-time-ever festival dedicated to the annual march of the bizarre-looking spiders. “Tarantula Trek: A Mating Expedition” debuts the weekend of Oct. 7 and 8 with a parade, family bike rides, and bus tours which will take curious tourists to watch tarantulas in their natural habitat in the nearby Comanche National Grassland.

Visit La Junta’s Pamela Denahy said the interest is so high the tours are sold out, and, as if on cue, the fuzzy bugs have already started to show up.

“I had one on my porch the other day!” she told The Denver Gazette.

Just as Rocky Ford’s quirky mascot is a cantaloupe, its neighbor city, La Junta may now finally have topped them. A tarantula mural decorates the side of a downtown building. La Junta’s $200,000 annual tourism dollars are sure to creep higher now that there’s an unorthodox reason to visit.

Two types of the arachnids will be moseying through the La Junta area: the Texas or Oklahoma Browns and a dwarf species. Reading is worried about several threats to their survival. They are a major food source for the hawk wasp. Further, “several species of tarantulas are threatened primarily due to habitat destruction and exploitation for the pet trade,” said Reading, who is feeling the pinch of possible tarantula decline.

Movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and the 1955 science fiction classic “Tarantula” have demonized an insect which Butterfly Pavilion scientists insist are really quite gentle. As La Junta prepares to introduce tourists to tarantulas, perhaps education is the key to their survival.

Said McCallister, “It’s not just like terrifying spiders invading the town. They’re just trying to survive.”