Desert Duets: Desert Tarantula Babies Web Page

In the Southwest, people sometimes see huge numbers of male tarantulas crossing roads in search of females. Now you know why the tarantula crossed the road! When a male finds a female's burrow, he dances in order to attract her attention. She may accept or reject him and after mating, she may eat him.

Several weeks after mating, the female tarantula spins a patch of silk, lays her eggs on it, and then wraps the silk into a sac. She guards her egg sac for about seven weeks. When the eggs hatch, she has 80 to 1000 or more spiderlings.

Tarantula spiderlings dig small homes near the burrow where they hatched. In order to grow, young spiders molt four times a year during the first three years of their lives. Males molt for ten to twelve years until they are fully grown. Females can live up to twenty-five years and molt throughout their lives.

 

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Launched: February 2008
Updated: 31 July 2009