A camper van and motorcyclist collided Saturday in Death Valley National Park after the van driver swerved to avoid a tarantula, park officials said.
Visitors from Switzerland were in the rented camper van on Highway 190, east of Towne Pass, when the driver swerved to avoid the slow-moving tarantula crossing the road. A 24-year-old Canadian man on a motorcycle crashed into the rear of the couple’s van.
The motorcyclist was hospitalized. Details about the man’s condition were not immediately available.
The tarantula walked away unscathed, the NPS said in its news release.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
“Please drive slowly, especially going down steep hills in the park,” said Superintendent Mike Reynolds, who was the first NPS employee to arrive at the scene about 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles. “Our roads still have gravel patches due to flood damage, and wildlife of all sizes are out.”
All roads, including Highway 190, in the park in the northern Mojave Desert were damaged by flooding Aug. 20 from Tropical Storm Hilary. A single-day park rainfall record was set Aug. 20 when Death Valley received more rain that it usually does in an entire year. The first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years delivered rainfall records Aug. 20 across Southern California during what is typically the region's driest month of the year.
The park partially reopened Oct. 15.
Tarantulas spend most of their lives underground in burrows, but they’re most likely to be seen in the fall when males go in search of a mate. The spiders are non-aggressive and although their bite might be painful, it’s not deadly to humans.
The Park Service also noted that the female sometimes kills the male after mating, then eats him. Either way, males rarely live for more than a few months, but females live for 25 years.
