La Junta tarantulas draw national studies
LA JUNTA, Colo (KRDO) - The La Junta tarantula fest starts Friday. It marks the annual quest of hundreds of male tarantulas across the area in search of mates.
This year the trek attracted a biologist all the way from Michigan to study the spiders' movement.
"People are always asking, why do you do that? You know, why is that important? And then when we come to to La Junta, everybody knows about the tarantulas," said Biologist and Eastern Michigan University professor Shillington.
Shillington took a sabbatical from her teaching position to study the Tarantula Trek in the Comanche National Grassland just south of La Junta.
"There's nothing like being in the field," Shillington said. "I have really enjoyed working with them and just finding out and realizing how little we know about These animals."
Shillington radio tags some of the male spiders and catalogs others she comes across with more mundane tags. She uses the radio tags to track and locate the spiders, allowing her to document their movements.
Her research coincides with the annual "La Junta Tarantula Fest" this Friday and Saturday.
The city provides ideal viewing locations and guidelines to safely observe the tarantulas. It asks that people do not stop or swerve on the highway or pull over on the narrow highway shoulders to view the spiders.
