(Describer) Title: PBS Digital Studios.

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(Describer) Title: KQED.

(Describer) A black, hairy insect leg sticks out of a hole. Title: Deep Look. Low sun shines in a forest.

NARRATOR: The world is a very different place when darkness falls.

(Describer) Another insect walks over a leaf.

Most of us head for home, for cover, because as the shadows creep in, they hide things, frightful things.

(Describer) The insect walks into shadows.

What is that, that little tower? Look, there's another one.

(Describer) They're like cylinders.

They blend in so well.

(Describer) They're rough and brown on the outside, with white material inside. The insect, a black beetle, starts crawling up one of them.

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(Describer) A spider comes out from the hole in the top and grabs it, pulling it in.

That was a California turret spider. Its lair is like the turret of a castle rising above the forest floor.

(Describer) A spider sits inside another one.

(Describer) Another moves inside another.

It's lined the inside with pearly white silk

(Describer) The strands cover tiny pieces of foliage and brown lumps.

and coated the outside with mud, moss, or leaves.

(Describer) The outside has similar colors to whatever is around it.

The turret leads down to the spider's burrow that can descend six inches underground.

(Describer) The silk-lined turret goes into darkness.

The spider spends its days down there. As the last rays of the sun die out, it rises...

(Describer) In another turret, a spider moves, then goes still near the top.

to wait motionless until some unsuspecting creature happens by, like this pill bug.

(Describer) It waves its antennae as it crawls over moss.

Every step it takes creates tiny tremors, betraying its location.

(Describer) It starts over a stick with a turret nearby. The spider waits inside as it goes over the stick.

(Describer) The pillbug turns to the end of the stick. The spider jumps out and back quickly, missing the pillbug.

Woo, that was close. Turret spiders actually have pretty poor vision. Instead, they rely on feel...

(Describer) When a leaf pokes the edge of the turret, it jumps out again.

bursting out in whichever direction the vibrations seem to come from. So, sometimes...

(Describer) It jumps out and back.

they miss. They belong to a group of spiders called mygalomorphs, along with their more famous cousins, tarantulas

(Describer) One jumps from a different hole.

and trapdoor spiders.

(Describer) One jumps out from a *covered* hole and pulls in its prey.

They pack oversized fangs

(Describer) They poke out at a leaf.

that swing down like a pair of pickaxes. They were hunting this way long before spiders started building intricate aerial webs, like this orb weaver spider.

(Describer) It crawls down its web to a fly caught in it.

Instead, a female turret spider might live for 16 years and never stray from her turret.

(Describer) One moves in her hole with torn leaves around the turret. Elsewhere, a beetle crawls over sand.

She only ventures into the world for a split second,

(Describer) She grabs the beetle when it gets to the top.

just long enough to drag her next victim down to its demise.

(Describer) She pulls it in and they disappear. A tiny sphere sits inside another turret.

Check this out-- a turret spiderling. Once it's big enough, it will venture out from its mom's house and set out on its own, but usually not too far away. Deep Look knows what you like-- more spiders. Do black widows really deserve their bad rap? And why is this spider dancing? Leap out and hit that subscribe button and that little notification bell so you never miss an episode of Deep Look. See you next time.