- [Camera Man] And action.
(suspenseful music)
(fast adventurous music)
- [Coyote] There are many things that crawl in the night
and on this dark monsoon threatening evening
the crew and I were headed out
into Arizona Sonoran Desert to find such things.
Our mission was to search out a dry walkable wash,
which is an area that water flows
through the desert during a monsoon.
- A wash is a great place to look for creatures at night
because animals use it as a highway to either move up
and down, or they have to cross it
moving from one section of the desert to another
and we're looking for a wash so that we can travel down it
and hopefully encounter some cool creatures.
One of the most likely candidates
has been causing nightmares for centuries
and if we located a giant arachnid,
the goal would be to get the cameras up close
and myself even closer.
All sorts of little holes down here,
but I don't see anything yet.
So the reason that I'm shining my light
down the length of the wash
is that spiders eyes reflect light in the dark
and this will actually give them away
and give me the advantage to get close to one
and hopefully get my hands on it.
All right, let's keep going and see if we can find one.
(crunching sounds)
- Bugs.
- Oh, got a good set of eyes.
- [Crew] You go, get the light on, get the light on.
Got movement right over here by this rock.
- Look at that.
Finally.
All night I thought all we were gonna find
is ant hill mounds and there you have it.
One big spider.
Wow.
Okay, just kind of approach slow.
That is a tarantula.
Wow, we have been out here searching,
for what, a solid two hours now,
seen nothing but ants and moths flying around by our lights
and just when I though we weren't gonna come across anything
you have it right here
and it is, this is a Desert Blond Tarantula.
It's a male and they way I can tell
is that the males have dark brownish black legs,
females have light tan legs
and this is about as big as they get.
Males grow a little bit larger than the females.
Now I wanna stay as calm as possible in this situation.
If I stay calm the animal will stay calm
and they actually use all these little hairs on their legs
to kind of sense the ground as they're walking
so it can feel all the vibrations in the ground
and you see that little defensive pose right there.
He's pointing his abdomen up in the air
and you see all those tiny little furs
on the back of the abdomen, you get to close to those
and those little hairs kind of flick off
and they could really cause
a real kind of nasty itching sensation.
I know for those of you out there who have arachnephobia
this is probably your worst nightmare.
Wow, that is a big spider tight there.
Look at that, what a handsome fellow.
I feel all those little tiny hairs on his legs
crawling up my arm.
Hold on, I don't want you going up there.
No, I don't want you going up there.
Now he is up and on my back.
Is he on my back?
- [Camera Man] He's on your backpack.
- This is one of the most common species here
in the Sonoran Dessert.
Thankfully they don't eat coyotes and where is he?
Is he off?
- [Camera] There he is.
He's going around the corner.
- Oh cool, all right, all right there we go.
All right, I feel a little bit better now.
These spiders are out this time of night.
They're mostly nocturnal.
Trying to avoid the heat of the day by staying in boroughs
and what they're looking for is insects,
and a spider of this size could even take down
small lizards, or small rodents, believe it or not.
Wow, absolutely beautiful.
All right, I'm gonna put him down
and gently pick him up so I can show you the underside
and see if we can take a look at his fangs,
but I wanna get him off of my arm for this.
Come down here buddy.
There we go.
Now this is in no way causing any injury to the spider.
It just will allow me to kind of get him up
so you guys can see those fangs.
I'll tell you what, if you're a moth
or any of the other bugs that run out here in this wash
you meet up with that set of fangs
it's gonna be the last meeting you ever have.
I definitely don't wanna be bitten by this spider.
It is venomous and it's not a venom
that's really gonna cause you
any more discomfort than a bee sting,
but still I wanna be as careful as possible.
Arachnophobia is one of the most common fears
that people suffer from.
Obviously I'm not afraid of spiders but I won't lie
holding a tarantula this size
definitely gets my heart racing.
Have you guys ever seen a spider this big?
Have you ever held a spider this big?
Tell me about it in the comment section below.
I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild.
We'll see you on the next adventure.
All right I'll put this big guy back into the wash
so he can go feast on some beetles.
See you later fuzzy butt.
Hey Coyote pack are you excited for the conclusion
to my climb of the insect stinging pain index?
If so, learn more about these thrilling
and painful adventures in my new book, The King of Sting.
Look for the link in the description below
and don't forget, subscribe,
then click the notification bell
so you can join me and the crew on our next wild adventure.
(wildlife sounds)