Tar did a weird thing today

I'm so baffled I had to ask – why this behaviour?

    
cd /var/www/html
tar czf ~/package.tgz admin/* api/* mobile/*

  

I do this, and the resulting package doesn't include a couple of hidden files – api/.htaccess and admin/.htaccess. However...

    
cd /var/www/html
tar czf ~/package.tgz *

  

This time the hidden .htaccess files are there.

Does anybody have enlightenment to offer as to why?