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Experience a 3-hour showcase of more than 16,000 animals including sharks, birds, frogs, turtles, dolphins, and jellies.

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Enjoy a 45-minute introduction of America's Aquatic Treasures featuring more than 1,500 animals including alligators, sharks, and turtles.

Balt, MDExplore: Baltimore, MD »

Experience a 3-hour showcase of more than 16,000 animals including sharks, birds, frogs, turtles, dolphins, and jellies.

Wash, DCExplore: Washington, DC »

Enjoy a 45-minute introduction of America's Aquatic Treasures featuring more than 1,500 animals including alligators, sharks, and turtles.

Balt, MD

Tarantula

Often large and hairy, some tarantula species live in the trees, while others live in holes in the ground.

Tarantulas grow by periodically molting their exoskeletons.

It may take many years for a tarantula to reach sexual maturity, and while males rarely live more than a year beyond this date, females may continue living for 20 years or more.

Diet

The diet is usually comprised of insects and other arthropods. Larger species may kill and eat small reptiles and rodents.

Size

Tarantula leg spans may range from 1 inch to nearly 1 foot.

Range

Tarantulas are found in temperate, desert, and tropical habitats worldwide.

Population Status

Most tarantulas, including the species we exhibit, are not threatened.

Predators

The primary predator of adult tarantulas is a wasp called a “tarantula hawk.”

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A Note From the Caretaker

New World tarantulas (those found in the Americas) possess 'urticating' hairs on their abdomen. As a defense mechanism, the tarantula uses its legs to fling these barbed and irritating hairs at potential danger. When accessing the enclosures that house tarantulas in the Aquarium, we must be careful not to get urticating hairs in our eyes.