A very calm tarantula. It had just stopped raining and was around 9 pm. We gently released him where he was found at the base of a buttressed tree.
Not sure if there's any chance of IDing this to species level, since there are 14 species in Texas and apparently ID requires capture and examination, but hey...
This is definitely a male--he's got the little hooks on his front two legs, and of course he was out in the open clipping along, likely trying to avoid becoming someone's lunch. Biggest wild tarantula I've seen!
Tarantulas comprise a group of hairy and often very large spiders belonging mainly to the family Theraphosidae, of which approximately 900 species have been identified. Historically tarantulas were the bigger genera from the family Lycosidae (like Lycosa tarantula). The colonists of the Americas gave the name to the bigger spiders of the tropic-dwelling families Theraphosidae and Dipluridae (funnel-web tarantulas), and that usage has now supplanted the earlier European one.
