Love is in the air in Colorado. It’s the kind of love that makes your heart beat a bit faster. It quickens your step. It even makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. 

It’s tarantula mating season. 

In September and October, male spiders scurry out of their burrows in search of mates. And hundreds of spider lovers flock to the small farming town of La Junta to spot the scuttling creatures.

Scientists, spider enthusiasts, and curious Colorado families piled into buses just before dusk on September 28. Tarantulas began to roam the dry, rolling plains. Some people used flashlights and car headlights to spot the arachnids once the sun set.

Back in town, a festival was in full swing. People held a hairy leg contest. Drivers showed off vintage cars with giant, fake spiders on the hoods. 

For residents of La Junta, tarantulas aren’t just creepy crawlies. They’re an important part of the local ecosystem. “Colorado Brown” tarantulas are the most common there. Mature males wander in search of a female’s burrow. She typically marks her home with silk webbing. 

Nathan Villareal is a tarantula breeder. “We saw at least a dozen tarantulas on the road, and then we went back afterwards and saw another dozen more,” he says.

Male tarantulas measure about five inches long. They grow a pair of attachments on their heads. They use these to drum outside a female’s burrow. She crawls to the surface if she is a willing mate. Males don’t hang around too long though. If they do, the females might eat them!

Tarantulas in North America are not very dangerous to humans. Their venom can cause some pain and irritation. Still, they’re more afraid of you than you are of them. They bite only if they think they need to protect themselves.

Kids at the festival learned that spiders are not as scary as they might seem. Roslyn Gonzales is 13. She says she couldn’t wait to go searching for spiders come sunset.

Would you go to a tarantula festival?

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. — Genesis 1:1