While some may think of tarantulas as scary or dangerous animals, student researchers at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) will tell you they're quite the opposite – and their passion for arachnids is allowing them to make waves in the greater scientific community. Graduate students Bradley Allendorfer and Dallas Haselhuhn, with the guidance of EMU biology professor Dr. Cara Shillington, are making great strides in the study of Colorado brown tarantulas both in the lab at EMU and in the field in Colorado.

"Tarantulas get a scary rep, but when you look at it, they have all the challenges that any other animal has," Allendorfer says. "They’re going to run away when a predator comes. They want to protect their babies. In a lot of ways they do a lot of the same things we have to do."

The students' tarantula research began in 2019, when Haselhuhn was doing unrelated work in Colorado after completing his undergraduate studies at EMU. That year, news outlets like CBS News and CNN began reporting on mass tarantula migrations across Colorado. 

"Everyone was sending me those articles, and eventually I was driving back and forth every weekend counting spiders," Haselhuhn says.
Dr. Cara Shillington in the EMU tarantula lab.
Haselhuhn returned to EMU for graduate school with data on male tarantulas' behavior at Comanche National Grassland in Springfield, Colo. He shared his findings with Shillington in the hopes of returning to Springfield as soon as possible. Shillington shared his excitement, and also saw a great educational opportunity for students in her arachnid lab.

"Because there are no tarantulas in Michigan, we do a lot of lab studies," explains Shillington, who teaches two EMU classes in arachnid biology. "I wanted to find a place where students could see tarantulas in their natural habitat." 

Shillington hosted a summer lab trip for students in the arachnid lab to visit Comanche National Grassland in person. She says nine students ended up attending the trip, including Haselhuhn and Allendorfer. Shillington says the site was "the most prolific" she’d ever visited in her several years studying tarantulas.

"It was a marvelous weekend," Shillington says. "I’m trying to keep students going there."
EMU graduate student Bradley Allendorfer at the EMU tarantula lab.
Allendorfer would return to the site to study the behavior of female tarantulas and their spiderlings. His research has since yielded what may be some of the first images of the spiderlings in their burrows, as well as groundbreaking discoveries on how female tarantulas protect their spiderlings.

"There’s an assumption that someone somewhere knows what these animals are doing, but that isn’t true," Allendorfer says. "Very little is actually known about what they’re doing, so it was cool to see and document the things that haven’t been documented before."

Shillington’s students have plans to publish their data, and they presented their findings at an American Arachnological Society (AAS) meeting in New York, as well as EMU’s annual Undergraduate Symposium. 

While the tarantulas are active enough in the summer for Allendorfer to say he was "tripping over spiders" on the site, the rest of the year has been dedicated to studying tarantulas in EMU’s tarantula lab. The lab is home to hundreds of animals at different stages of life, giving undergraduate researchers Annalyse Brogan and Spencer Poscente opportunities to come up with their own questions to answer before they visit the field site in summer 2024.
A tarantula at the EMU tarantula lab.
"If I tell people in Michigan that I’m studying tarantulas, they get really confused," explains Brogan, who has been studying the tarantulas' overall behavior in the lab. "But the people there in Colorado are much more excited. It’s going to be like night and day."

Poscente shares Brogan’s excitement, though a good deal of his work in the lab has actually involved caring for scorpions in addition to studying spiders.

"It’s been nice planning for us knowing that there’s a community [of researchers] there already," Poscente says. "There are so many questions are already being asked – so many 'why’s."

The community Poscente mentions is "very enthusiastic" about EMU’s student research. Haselhuhn mentions that the first year this research took place was the same year that La Junta, Colo., where he was staying, held a tarantula festival to capitalize on the migrations and educate attendees on the animals.
Bradley Allendorfer sharing a video from a tarantula burrow with Nicole Zuraw.
"The local director of tourism had spoken to local newspapers to push the news about the migration," says Haselhuhn, who participated in the inaugural festival by giving educational talks to visitors. "It was all very serendipitous."

Shillington has been working to find funding for future trips to the field site, given that students are unable to work other jobs while on the site due to the commitment needed to accurately capture data. Both EMU and AAS have helped in these efforts, but Shillington wants to make sure that students keep going to the site and feel financially comfortable spending several weeks away from home.

"I love being at Eastern but I miss having immediate access to the animals," Shillington says. "We’re figuring out ways we can keep going out there. I really appreciate the commitment from my students."

Though Haselhuhn and Allendorfer will have completed their graduate studies at EMU by the time Brogan and Poscente head to Colorado this summer, both of them hope the arachnid lab's work will continue to drive interest in further studies of the animals.

"There’s so little known. The media attention has been beneficial for more people to be interested in the animals beyond that they exist," Haselhuhn says. "From an academic standpoint, it’s so nice to not focus on one specific gene from one species. We can cover all the bases to help demystify tarantulas."
A tarantula eating a cricket at the EMU tarantula lab.
Brogan and Poscente, like Allendorfer, also want people to understand that tarantulas shouldn’t be seen as dangerous or frightening. They hope that research like theirs will lead to more people having a neutral outlook on the animals instead of a negative one.

"If you talk to anyone, they either are afraid of spiders or know someone who is," Poscente says. "But they’re not so bad. They’re wacky, but they’re important."

"They’re really just going to do their own thing and prefer it that way," Brogan adds.

Shillington expresses great pride in her students' commitment to their research and looks forward to how future trips to Colorado will affect the greater scientific community.

"Lots of different groups study spiders, but we’re really the only group in the United States that only studies tarantulas," she explains. "We are all ambassadors. People just don’t realize how exciting this is."

Rylee Barnsdale is a Michigan native and longtime Washtenaw County resident. She wants to use her journalistic experience from her time at Eastern Michigan University writing for the Eastern Echo to tell the stories of Washtenaw County residents that need to be heard.

All photos by Doug Coombe.