It is typical for them to ambush their prey and dispatch it with a crushing grasp of the fangs. The fangs are located in front of the spider, on the robust paturons of the chelicerae. Some large tarantulas give more than one-tenth of a milliliter of venom when they are milked, but they probably use much less when biting prey. Tarantulas are oviparous. The eggs are fertilized after laying.
Females can have multiple partners and they are solitary hunters.
The female is an excellent mother and takes very good care of the egg sac and young but the young typically disperse shortly after hatching and fend for themselves. Most New World tarantulas have a patch of fluffy and barbed defensive hairs on their abdomen can be brushed off by the spider. People who handle these spider a lot can become very sensitive to the hairs so it is a good practice to were gloves and other protection with handling or cleaning up after these animals. Old World tarantulas do not have these hairs. I ll venture a guess that this myth started when a sick or severely desiccated tarantula died on top of it s water bowl.