By pushing her up and backwards, he exposes her underside for sperm packet transfer. He feels for her reproductive opening and then releases the sperm sacs, first from one palp, then the other. After successfully mating, the female will produce an egg sac the size of a lemon. This contains about 80 eggs. Spiderlings mature in two to three years, but the males die shortly after maturity.
Females live on for several more years.
When a tarantula feels threatened it rubs its hind legs, which have stout spines on their inner surface, across the sides of its abdomen. This sends a cloud of microscopic barbed hairs into the air above it. These urticating hairs are extremely irritating to all mammals including humans. They become lodged in the skin and itch very badly, causing days of terrible discomfort. When inhaled, they cause acute inflammation of the nose and lungs, in some cases so badly the affected animal can die in a few hours.