Tarantulas: Why you shouldn’t be afraid

We know very little about the brown tarantula (Aphonopelma hentzi), whose habitat stretches from Louisiana to Texas and Colorado. But the first question arachnid expert Cara Shillington asks is, why are we afraid of tarantulas? She talks with Jonathan Vigliotti, who also visits Colorado’s La Junta Tarantula Fest, an annual celebration of the eight-legged creature that draws thousands to see thousands of brown tarantulas wandering the Comanche National Grassland in a haphazard, often halting hunt for a mate.