SPIDER MAN: They’re creepy, but tarantulas have...

SPIDER MAN: They’re creepy, but tarantulas have a big fan in Michael Brajdic, senior ranger at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park. Lucky thing, because the park has plenty. Big numbers don’t usually show up until August, but park officials are seeing them earlier this year. . . . “These are full-on big black hairy tarantulas--the size of a palm of a hand,” he said. “They’re not poisonous, but they do bite. We don’t recommend picking them up.”

BATHING BEAR: Remember the bear in the hot tub? Samson the Bear, whose dip in a Monrovia spa made him an overnight celebrity, arrives at the Orange County Zoo in August. The 600-pound, 15-year-old bear will eat apples, sweet potatoes and dog kibble, plus some occasional fish and raw meat. . . . Said zoo director Forrest de Spain: “We’ll also occasionally put a little honey in the exhibit and hide an avocado for him here and there among the rocks.”

FOX SCIENCE: Cal State Fullerton grad student Chris Kodani has braved poison oak and been divebombed by bats during his two-year study of the California gray fox. . . . The 26-year-old tracked foxes through the Santa Ana Mountains using radio collars and directional antennas and even baked their droppings to kill the parasites. “Then it’s safe to pick through,” he said. “You learn a lot about the animal by learning what it eats.”

OUTFOXED: Red foxes have been snatching golf balls from golfers at Mile Square Regional Park and David L. Baker golf courses in Fountain Valley. Golfers say at least two dens can be found under the sand traps at the Baker course. . . . It’s against course etiquette to disturb the critters, even when they scamper off with a ball in play. “We let them have the right of way,” said teaching pro Glenn Howard.