Sunday, March 14, was Save a Spider Day, and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area recognized the holiday by posting photos of a particularly fearsome looking arachnid: a pet non-native Brazilian black tarantula (Grammostola pulchra) crawling on a rock.
In addition to capturing and eating pests, spiders are also valued for helping advance science: their super-strong webs are studied by physicists and their venom helps medical researchers develop medicines.