Along Came a Spider Pavilion

While some may ring in October by smearing shrubs with 99-cent store fuzzy webbing and plastic spiders, the arachnid purists over at the Natural History Museum have a more organic approach. Each autumn a screened pavilion on the museum’s South Lawn becomes home to more free-range, eight-legged tenants than anyone in his right mind could want – in short, an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare and an eight-year-old boy’s version of heaven.

We have paid several visits to the museum’s springtime Butterfuly Pavilion through the years, joining the throngs of smiling families oohing, ahhing, and extending fingers. The Spider Pavilion crowd behaves quite differently – more along the lines of gasping, shuddering, and shrinking away. I didn’t see a single visitor needing a reminder not to touch. Enormous creatures (on the scale of what you don't want to find in your bathtub) perch in the center of doubly enormous webs, hanging out and waiting for museum staff to toss a few worms and grasshoppers their way.

The dramatic looking spiders journey here from as far away as the swamps of Louisiana, though local varieties are also represented. Breeds inclined to sit in their webs are chosen for the exhibit, and we learned that only females are selected because the she-spiders are so much bigger than the he-spiders. A few dangerous spiders (e.g. black and brown widows and brown recluses) are displayed in a glass case outside the main exhibit; the spiders spinning free are those not considered dangerous to humans.

Daytime visits are great for photo ops,  but families harboring true arachnophiles and budding entomologists should consider checking out one of the Spider Pavilion evening flashlight tours. After dark is when these creepy crawlies are the most active, and if a knock-down, drag-out spider brawl sounds like a good time, now you know where to find one. Nighttime is also when they are most inclined to gobble up their own webs and rebuild them someplace else (TMI?) in the ultimate act of recycling.

Between pumpkin patches, haunted houses, and Halloween festivals, entertainment is not hard to come by at this time of year, but slipping in one outing that has a big educational element feels good - in spite of all those icky, hairy legs.

Spider Pavilion open daily 9/25-11/6
10:00am-5:00pm (last entry 4:30pm)
Adults $3; Students & Seniors $2; Children $1