Desert tarantula
Aphonopelma iodius
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersDeserts and dry places8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin
The desert tarantula is a big, hairy spider from the deserts of the western United States. It lives in a silk-lined burrow under the ground. On hot days it plugs the door of its burrow with silk and soil to keep the heat out.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, especially the Mojave Desert
What does it eat?
It hunts insects and other small creatures that come near its burrow.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Desert tarantula about 1.5 km/h (0.93 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
A male takes about seven years to grow up.
2
To find a mate, the male taps on the ground outside a female's burrow.
3
Females can live for more than thirty years in captivity.
4
In autumn, grown-up males leave their burrows and wander around looking for females.
you asked
Most asked questions about Desert tarantula
?How long do desert tarantulas live?
Females can live more than 30 years. Males live much shorter lives.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Aphonopelma iodius
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Theraphosidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Theraphosidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Great Basin blonde, Fresno County blonde, Salt Lake City brown, Northern blonde
Where the facts come from
- Aphonopelma iodius (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Chris A. Hamilton, Brent E. Hendrixson, Jason E. Bond. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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