CREEPYCRAWLYCREEPYCRAWLYCREEPYCRAWLY

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkk!!! MOMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Look, he’s crawling up my wall
Black and hairy, very small
Now he’s up above my head
Hanging by a little thread

Boris the Spider!
Bor-r-r-r-is the Spider!

~ The Who, from “A Quick One”, December 1966

Seems about August and on into Halloween, I can grab my pack and set off to the nearby Diablo Range for a saunter and see my favorite creepy-crawly critter, the tarantula. It’s the time of year that the male of the species is frequently seen wandering about anywhere from the Carquinez Straits to Salinas and beyond looking to mate with a female, who stays within close range of her underground burrow.

Many of us know that tarantula is the common name for a group of hairy and often very large spiders. Large and hairy and scary they may seem to be, but what folks often don’t know is that most tarantulas are basically harmless to humans. Yep, they mainly eat insects, though some of the larger ones can kill animals as large as lizards, mice, or birds. Tarantulas will only bite if they are mishandled (well now golly, wouldn’t you?) and if the bite stings at all, it is no more than that of a small pin-prick. Or two pin-pricks. After all, they have a pair of fangs. Is that news?

Some scientists do not like to use the name tarantula for this group of spiders, because the name also seems to be unduly applied to other unrelated spiders that just happen to be larger than your average garden-variety arachnid. If you were to get technical and all-fired uppity about it – and you don’t have to be a scientist to be of such a notion – why, you’d call California’s tarantulas Hairy Mygalomorphs.

Hey, back up the truck, Mr. Winehiker Guy! You mean tarantulas can catch, and actually eat, birds?

Yep. And I think that’s downright crafty of those hairy ol’ spiders. Certainly they must be smarter than their bird-prey to be able to snare such a flighty, high-strung three-dimensionally-mobile object long enough to make a meal of it. Trick or treat? Depends on who’s wearing the feathers and who’s wearing the spider fur.

Well, the Law of the Jungle always was: you gotta be faster, or smarter, than your prey.

I think it’s always good to spy a tarantula upon the trail. And if you do, let them cross safely. After all, they’re on a mission that may be more important than yours. I think it’s also good that they ply the length of the Diablo Range with their presence. Just like bats, they keep the rest of us around here from having to worry too much about too many pesky bugs flitting around and being bothersome and all.

Tarantula spiders, indeed, are good.

And I like to let them crawl up my arm if they’ve a mind to. First tarantula I ever encountered did just that, up on Mt. Hamilton in 1989. Funny how I never seem to think of snapping my camera when that happens. Must be that I’m too excited by such a rare and fleeting moment to have engaged my practical senses. But that’s not to say that I haven’t recorded their presence a time or two.

I encountered this little fella, a young male, on an evening hike up Mission Peak earlier this month. Feel free to click him so he enlarges for you. If you dare!

Moments before, I had met this young California King Snake, Lampropeltis getulus californiae, crossing the trail in search of field mice and other rodents.

My pal Mark took this shot of my pal MJ at Henry Coe State Park last October. MJ is my kinda go-for-it gal.

This little Hairy Mygalomorph is just a toddler. A fellow hiker found him under a small rock at Henry Coe Park in the Spring of 2005. He rates high on the HCCF scale: High Consummately Cute Factor, a.k.a. High Creepy-Crawly Factor.

If you should ever spy a tarantula on the trail, then you’ll enjoy a sudden reminder of why you choose to get out there on the trail in the first place. You know? You’re one of the lucky ones.

Happy Halloween!

~winehiker

P.S. For a fun surprise, play the Itsy Bitsy Spider game!

Related posts:

• Creepy crawly links
• Trip Report: China Hole Loop Hike, Henry Coe State Park
• An Arachnoid Prediction for Friday the 13th

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 9:47 pm and is filed under grape squeezins, winehiker's trails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.