Sara Stevens was not keen on spiders when she started at Butterfly Pavilion.

“My background was marine biology,” said the director of animal collections at the Westminster zoo of invertebrates. “My office had like 200 tarantulas in it. So it was a little stressful at first.”

Like so many adults, she harbored what she considered now to be a “learned fear” of arachnids.

“The really cool thing about working here at Butterfly Pavilion is I got to learn about these

animals,” Stevens said. “And the more I learned, the more I realized they are not these big, scary, nightmarish creatures in the dark.”

She hopes others come to a similar realization in October, when the Butterfly Pavilion returns an annual exhibit celebrating a much different insect than the one in its name.

It’s time again for “Spiders Around the World” — time for visitors to face their fears in a space occupied by some 500-plus spiders, representing 68 fanged, furry, beady-eyed species around the world.

It’s the spooky season, after all. “We feel people are primed in October to be a little scared,” Stevens said. “That can often lower people’s thresholds for people willing to push their boundaries. Which means we have a very unique opportunity to engage them with an animal they may have a negative or fearful relationship with and adjust that and morph that into something more positive.”

The ultimate test: the Spider

Zone.

For years, families have come for the butterflies flying free in a sunny, green conservatory called Wings of the Tropics. Throughout October, hundreds of free-crawling, web-spinning spiders will take over a third of that conservatory — and visitors are invited to walk among them.

The Spider Zone is reportedly eight times larger than in 2022, spanning 80 feet. It’ll be occupied by various types of orb-weavers, so named for their intricately shaped webs that tend to glisten in the light — especially that of the golden orb-weaver.

“Like artistry,” said Butterfly Pavilion’s director of communications, Jennifer Quermann.

Among the orb-weavers will be the Malaysian giant, known to grow the size of a human hand. It arrives from one of the zoo’s partner farms from around the globe, explaining how many of the species come to the facility. Many others are bred on site.

That includes several tarantulas, which will be other stars of the monthlong exhibit.

There will be the Goliath birdeater, with legs that can span a dinner plate. There will also be the pumpkin patch tarantula, which is the orange you’d expect from a pumpkin but perhaps not from the dark, hairy image of the tarantula in your mind.

“We’ll have a diversity — oranges and blues and purples and pinks,” Stevens said. “Lots of colors that people don’t associate with tarantulas.”

She added: “That’s the goal of this exhibit, to highlight the beauty of our animals and how important and valuable they are to their ecosystems.”

Spiders are important in ridding your house of pests like mosquitoes and flies and also maintaining those populations in the wild. On the other end of the food chain, they are themselves an important source of protein.

They are threatened by habitat loss and poaching, particularly tarantulas, Butterfly Pavilion emphasizes.

“The sapphire ornamental tarantula is highly coveted in the pet trade,” Stevens said, speaking of the blue and yellow crawler that will be on display.

One might sympathize at the Itsy-bitsy Spiderling Nursery, new to the exhibit this year. There visitors can meet little ones born on site.

And, of course, Rosie will be on hand — the tarantula that has been a fixture at Butterfly Pavilion, held by guests of all ages.

“The children are usually so excited to see Rosie,” Stevens said. “It’s usually our adults who are most nervous. And a lot of that is they were just taught to feel that way.”