Its nearly September and time for the Texas Brown Tarantulas to begin their annual fall dispersal. Typically, the males are seen crossing roads in the Red Hills and other parts of southern Kansas this time of year. Stan Roth was kind enough to correct my mistake (thank you) on description of the sex originally as female in my first posting. It is, indeed, the males that do the roaming.
These large spiders can raise up on their hind legs and act very menacing but it's generally just a big show. Not totally harmless, they do have fangs although it takes a lot of harassment to get them to fang you. Its not a strong venom though and cannot kill you. They do have hairs on their abdomen which can be somewhat irritating to skin. They do have enemies though.
The Tarantula Hawk is actually a wasp. They were also hunting this blacktop road this evening, looking for a tarantula to sting and then carry off to a hole. It will bury the tarantula in the hole with an egg so that the young wasp will have a first meal as it emerges. Its always an entertwining and exciting drama in the Kansas Outback.
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