Crowds are building in La Junta, Colorado, about three hours south of Denver. The draw is the annual "tarantula migration," where the big hairy spiders are on the move, which makes this tourist season for the town. But they aren't really migrating.
What are those tarantulas on the hunt for? Not storms, but rather mates. And Laubach said there's one specific reason they come out this time of the year.
"It’s a lot to do with the weather,” Laubach told AccuWeather Broadcast Meteorologist Adam Del Rosso during a segment on AccuWeather Prime. “The male spiders, the ones that you’re seeing, are actually looking to mate. So this isn’t as much of a migration as it is a mate-gration."
The annual showcase of mate-hunting tarantulas has become a tourist attraction in the small Colorado city. Pamela Denahy, the tourist director of Visit La Junta, told Laubach the spiders are "docile creatures."
Read about the tarantulas and their curious allure at AccuWeather. -via Fark