Spider Pavilion Scurrying for NHM

The webby wonders'll receive visitors beginning on Halloween Eve.

If you have a giant paper spider hanging on your front door, the kind with accordion crepe legs and plastic eyes, it must be mean A) Halloween is on its way or B) you really, really like giant paper spiders with accordion paper legs.

But there's no need to inquire what this symbol of the season will be up to on Halloween Eve: He'll be frightening-up your front door in anticipation of trick-or-treaters to come.

Ask the same of the spiders crawling towards the Natural History Museum on Halloween Eve, and their answers will be different, for they are not made of paper, but are 100 percent real, and will boldly represent, with webs and wonder, at the institution's annual Spider Pavilion.

True, this walk-through space has debuted a bit earlier in fall in past years, but the Oct. 30 opening feels just perfect for this arachna-universe, a world that will be on delightful display through Sunday, Dec. 11.

"Guests will have the rare opportunity to immerse themselves in the spiders' habitat and witness the day-to-day lives of these often misunderstood, but uniquely talented creatures," is the statement from the museum. (A statement that was emailed out and not spun out via spider silk, like in "Charlotte's Web," -- but still a memorable statement nonetheless.)

Prepare to view the special Spider Den inside the pavilion, where critters like the pink toe tarantula and the jumping spider will be on close-up view.

No eeking out: The Spider Den habitats are enclosed. Truly. No fibbing. The den's busy denizens only want to do their spidery, gotta-get-stuff-done thing, unimpeded by we curious humans.

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But there is also a walk-through pavilion for those same curious humans, one that offers a different visual experience. The airy space will spotlight such spinneret-rocking superstars as the orb weavers, those masters of web-based technologies. 

Question: Do spiders build some of the most beautiful web sites — er, web sights? — on the planet? Discuss.

Gallery interpreters shall stand at the ready to chat about garden spiders and golden silk spiders and all of the eight-legged legends who regularly set up insect-attracting shop in our yards and gardens.

Western Exterminator is the sponsor, and tickets? They're timed, so scurry over here now to find your ideal hour.

So how many different levels of spiderdom may be found throughout LA County? The Natural History Museum reveals that the Spider Survey says "nearly 6,000 individual spiders" have been catalogued in our city's "diverse urban spider population."

Ponder that amazingly cool factoid next time you're out on the sidewalk at night and a strand of unseen web gently brushes across your cheek.

Our front door Halloween spiders, the ones made of paper, are pretty cute, but they'll never spin a cheek-brushing, out-on-the-sidewalk, I'm-awake-now web.

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