As Texas critters go, the brown tarantula—Aphonopelma hentzi, if you’re feeling fancy—is not a widely beloved creature. Spiders suffer from public relations issues at the best of times, and larger species tend to be cast in film and fiction as fantasy monsters (Lord Of The Rings) or horror-movie fodder (Tarantula, Arachnophobia). 

The animal itself, however, has much to recommend it, says Jackie Billotte, a doctoral student at Colorado State University who studies the species. Despite their fearsome, furry appearance, Texas brown tarantulas tend to be docile and shy. Members of this widespread, adaptable species are happiest when they have nothing to do with humans—or much else outside their burrows—and yet, once a year, male tarantulas risk it all for love. 

“Personally, I think they’re adorable,” Billotte says. “But your mileage may vary on that.” 

The brown tarantula is a large spider decked out in tan and cinnamon-colored fuzz. Their body length is usually around 1.5 inches; their leg span—measured from toe-tip to toe-tip can top four inches. They have eight small, rather weak eyes, legs tipped in tiny catlike paws, and a pair of impressive fangs kept discreetly tucked out of sight. The species is remarkably widespread, Billotte said. The Texas brown tarantula is found in at least eight states, from the high plains of Colorado to the pine forests of Louisiana, and throughout much of Texas. Individual populations can vary quite a bit in size, robustness, and color, so much so that until 2016, spider scientists didn’t realize they all belonged to the same species. “Part of the problem is that there aren’t that many people consistently doing tarantula research,” Billotte says. “One of the things you get used to when you study spiders is that whatever species you look at is notoriously understudied.”

Brown tarantulas in particular are quite secretive. Unlike orb weavers or other web-building spiders—with their evolutionarily innovative, gossamer traps placed at human-head height—the family belongs to an older branch of the spider family tree, one that largely makes use of holes. The engineering prowess of Texas brown tarantulas lies not in the intricate architecture of their webs but their genius for burrowing: each digs itself an apartment under a rock or log, lining it with silk to keep the home comfortably cool and humid. 

Tarantulas spend most of their lives—around three years for males, as long as 25 for females—in quiet contemplation in these burrows, awaiting passing prey. Like all spiders, Texas brown tarantulas are venomous. When they munch on a cricket or beetle, they inject a cocktail of enzymes and toxins that kills and digests the unfortunate insect. (Fear not: the bite is only mildly painful to humans, on par with a bee sting.) Since their eyes aren’t particularly good, they run trip lines of webbing out across the ground around their burrow, scurrying out when they detect the vibration of passing prey. “They have a pretty broad diet,” Billotte says, which frequently includes lubber grasshoppers and other bugs, as well as the occasional young lizard or rodent. Brown tarantulas have thrived as a species in part because they aren’t picky eaters. “If they think they can take it on, they’ll try it,” Billotte says. 

When prey doesn’t present itself, they’re hardy enough to wait for better times: they can survive an astonishing twenty months without food and nine months without water, says Dave Moellendorf, an independent tarantula researcher who runs Zookeeper Exotics, a pet and plant store in Austin.

Yet while tarantulas can be voracious predators when food is available, they aren’t undiscerning ones. Tarantulas occasionally share their burrows with the 1.5-inch narrowmouth toad, a surprisingly peaceful roommate situation that Moellendorf has occasionally seen in the wild. While the tarantula could easily devour the little toad, it chooses not to, since living together benefits both animals. “It’s a symbiotic arrangement,” Moellendorf explains. “The narrowmouth tends to feed on very tiny insects, like ants and other things that could perhaps raid the burrow. In return, the toad is protected by the spider.”   

The tarantula’s other close ecological relationship is considerably less pleasant. A family of large blue-black wasps—commonly called spider wasps or tarantula hawks—use the spiders as part of their breeding cycle. Hunting out tarantula burrows, they’ll intentionally trigger the spiders’ trip lines. In the ensuing fight, “the blind spider basically doesn’t have a chance,” Moellendorf said. After the wasp’s sting paralyzes the tarantula, it drags the unfortunate spider back into its own burrow, lays an egg on it, and seals the spider inside the burrow. When the wasp larvae hatches, it slowly consumes the still-living spider—eating the nonessential bits first before metamorphosing into an adult wasp. (The wasp family’s gruesome life cycle was one inspiration behind the parasitic Xenomorph from the film Alien.) The wasps don’t always have it all their own way, though: even with their weak vision, tarantulas do sometimes manage to turn the tables. “Sometimes it’s a bit like the final girl killing the slasher,” Billotte says. “And then eating him.”  

Texas brown tarantulas’ own reproductive cycle runs from May to July, as male tarantulas that have spent a few years growing in their underground burrows reach the end of their lives. Their legs turn black and their abdomens glint with an iridescent sheen. Compelled by an irresistible urge, they abandon their homes and hit the wider world, Billotte says, wandering in an aimless migration over hillsides, prairies, roads and lawns. “When they’re on the road, they just want to find a mate,” Billotte says, and can cover over a mile in a single night’s wandering—an impressive feat for an arachnid just four to six inches long. “They’re going to go door-to-door and knock and see if anyone’s interested.”

This can be risky, since female tarantulas aren’t necessarily opposed to eating others of their species, Moellendorf said. When a male finds a burrow with a female inside, he has to approach carefully, vibrating the bristles on his legs to announce his amorous intent. The female will usually come up and have a look: if she likes what she sees, she’ll tap an invitation. After mating, the male typically beats a prudent retreat and heads on to find another female. He’ll keep at it until he’s killed by a predator, xenomorphed by a wasp, felled by old age, or simply becomes too tired to get away from a post-coitally peckish female tarantula—an outcome, at least, that does give her the additional nutrients necessary to produce a larger clutch of spiderlings. 

The sudden annual appearance of a number of large, bumbling spiders tends to put the tarantulas in the crosshairs of their other major threat: humans. The Texas brown tarantula is not an endangered or threatened species. But many meet their end under car wheels while crossing the roads that split their habitat, or are killed by nervous people. Their bad reputation is entirely unwarranted, Billotte says. Tarantulas are reluctant to bite unless they absolutely have to, and generally make for their burrow at the first sign of trouble. “They have no interest in us,” Billotte says. “We’re not a part of their story. So they’re not going to come after us in any shape or form.” 

For a week, however, I went after tarantulas. I drove back roads outside of Austin, looking for scurrying males. I combed the hillsides along the Barton Creek Greenbelt, flipping likely looking stones. I found several old tarantula burrows, long abandoned, including one containing an old, molted spider-skin. 

Finally, I flipped a large rock and found a plump, fuzzy female crouching inside her burrow, understandably startled by the sudden absence of a roof. Carefully, I used a twig to usher her out from under the rock so that I could replace it without harming her, and then began guiding her back to the burrow. She went along clumsily, clearly having trouble navigating in the daylight. Eventually, she had enough: reluctantly—even apologetically—she reared, spreading her legs in a threat display and displaying her fangs. A few steps backward, and she scooted back down her burrow and out of sight, to calm her nerves and await more welcome visitors during the tarantulas’ summer of love.