Joe Zemba
La Junta Tribune-Democrat
The third annual Tarantula Fest crawled into La Junta this weekend, drawing hundreds of visitors eager to witness one of nature’s most unique spectacles. The festival celebrated the region’s famed tarantula migration, where thousands of male tarantulas emerge from their burrows and travel across the region, including Comanche National Grassland, in search of mates.
La Junta has become a hotspot for arachnid enthusiasts and curious travelers alike, capitalizing on the seasonal phenomenon. While tarantulas typically inspire fear, the festival reimagines the creatures as symbols of ecological wonder and conservation.
Festival-goers were treated to a variety of activities, including guided tarantula tours, educational talks by entomologists, and interactive exhibits about arachnid life cycles. The Tarantula Fest also featured local vendors, food trucks, and live music.
Children’s events, including face painting and tarantula crafts, kept the younger attendees entertained. The star of the festival, however, remained the tarantulas themselves, with many visitors sharing stories of their encounters with the gentle creatures.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Sarah Carrington, a first-time visitor from Denver. “ It’s amazing to see them up close.”
With visitors coming from as far as California and Texas, local businesses are seeing the economic boost that comes from the influx of tourists.
“This event is great for the town,” said one local vendor of the increased foot traffic. “Not only are we educating people about tarantulas, but it’s also a big weekend for us in terms of sales.”
The migration will continue for several weeks, offering visitors a chance to witness the tarantulas’ journey long after the festival wrapped up.
As stated by an online source, tarantula migration isn’t migration in the strictest sense of the term. It is more of emergence than actual migration. These spiders usually stick to their burrows and rarely wander around.
Unlike migration in other animals, tarantulas only come out in large numbers in search of a mate. Because they do so around a particular season and several of them emerge at the same time, it is referred to as migration. So, it is more of a “mate-gration” than a migration. It is an annual ritual these spiders undergo. You may spot as many as 12 tarantulas at the peak of this so-called migration season.
The search can go on for long distances and time stretches until they can find a mate. The distance can be as large as several miles. One particular male tarantula under observation moved for about 0.62 miles just to find a mate. This distance may seem small to humans, but it can be likened to a marathon for these spiders.
One major difference between tarantula migration and migration in other animal species is that their movement has no specific direction. Most animals migrate to a specific location, and they all move together to that particular spot at a specific time of the year. With tarantulas, the purpose of migration is to find a mate, and they’ll go in any direction until they find one.
Age and pheromones are two major factors that dictate how spiders migrate. The male tarantula matures at a different rate from the female. The males get sexually mature at the age of three to seven years. Once they attain this stage, the next thing for them is reproduction; for that, they need to migrate in search of a mate.
The male tarantulas are typically the migrant in this yearly ritual. All the males that have matured within the year make the journey searching for suitable mates. They leave their hideouts at the beginning of fall, relying on their pheromones and body vibrations to assist them during the search.
Once the male successfully finds a female burrow, it communicates its intentions before entry. They use body vibrations, or they simply ‘knock’ before entry. The males ‘knock’ with their pedipalps. They tap out a specific rhythm which serves as a kind of signal that announces their arrival to the females. The female then decides if the male is a desirable mate or not. During the short season, the males often visit several female burrows and mate with them.
After the mating season, the males don’t usually live long. They have an average lifespan of 10 years. Most times, they don’t last for more than two years after maturity. On the other hand, females take about 15 years to reach sexual maturity and can live for up to 40 years. Contrary to popular belief, female tarantulas don’t always kill the males they mate with. This only happens occasionally if the significantly bigger female mistakes the male for prey. Males often die off on their own due to starvation, fatigue, and cold weather. Exposure to predators during migration, human activities, and other unfavorable factors also contribute to their short lifespan.
Given the terrain, La Junta is an ideal location for any individuals interested in viewing the migration.
