Tarantulas are on the prowl in Colorado...and no, that roadside spider is not real. AccuWeather's Tony Laubach joins the hunt, boots on and laughs ready, for La Junta's wild and fuzzy mating season.

La Junta

In the grasslands of southeast Colorado, male Colorado brown tarantulas emerge from their burrows during mating season, embarking on a perilous journey to find female mates. This annual event is not a migration but a mating expedition, with hundreds of spiders traversing the prairie.

The spectacle attracts visitors from across the country, eager to witness the natural phenomenon. While the males seek out females, they face significant risks, including the possibility of being consumed by their mates. The region's undisturbed short grass prairie provides an ideal habitat for these spiders, making sightings likely for those who visit during this time.

Love bites: Male tarantulas risk it all in Colorado's wild crawl

Out on the prairies of southeast Colorado where I'm normally chasing tornadoes, but today we're chasing tarantulas. A sighting! We get out to look at our first of the day, but... This one turned out to be a plastic prank left along the roadside, but fortunately the real ones were not far away. I'm not a big spider fan, so that's why I wear the tall boots. They don't want nothing to do with us, just like I don't want nothing to do with them. Fake or not, each fall hundreds of male tarantulas leave their burrows in search of females. It is not a migration, it is a mating expedition. Known as the Colorado brown tarantulas, they thrive in these grasslands. We've got here this beautiful short grass prairie out here on the grasslands and a lot of undisturbed land and the spiders just love it. This is tarantula paradise. And in this paradise, this time of year it is mating season as the males go on hunt for female mates, even if it is the last thing they do. Sometimes they don't make it away, sometimes the females will actually consume the male. For locals, the experience is worth sharing with visitors from all over the country. It's truly a natural phenomenon to see them in their natural landscape. We feel like we've done a really good job of narrowing down the right location and the right time that we can almost, of course we can't guarantee, but that we can almost guarantee you will see a tarantula out in the wild. And most likely, they'll be a little bit more real than this one. It's awesome to just come up and see them. In La Junta, Colorado for AccuWeather, I'm meteorologist Tony Laubach.

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