L. tarantula is a large species found in southern Europe, especially in the Apulia region of Italy and near the city of Taranto, from which it gets its name.

They are a nocturnal species and generally lurk at the mouths of their burrows waiting for prey, so people are unlikely to encounter them.

When wolf spiders are cornered, they show no inclination to make threat displays, much less to advance on a human's hand with the intention of biting.

[1] A once-traditional belief among Apulian peasantry is that a person bitten by one of these spiders must be treated by indulging in a special kind of dancing.

However, L. tarantula has been observed to be harmful to some small vertebrates, so careful handling is important with this species[7].

A broad study of the genus Lycosa found that injecting venom from different spiders in this genus typically only resulted in swelling in guinea pigs that did not last more than 7 days, scabbing in pigs that cleared up in about a week, and slight hemolysis when tested on human red blood cells[9].