Tarantula Festival

Every year in early fall, thousands of male tarantulas emerge from their burrows in southeastern Colorado and set out in search of a mate. While some towns might shy away from this wildlife ritual, the town of La Junta celebrates it during the annual Tarantula Festival, started in 2022 as a way to draw visitors and educate the public about tarantulas’ important role in the Eastern Plains ecosystem. Even though the spiders are the festival’s headliners, you won’t see many hanging around La Junta. Instead, they spend most of their time roaming the undisturbed prairies near the border with Oklahoma.