The South Coast Botanic Garden will be alive with insects this Sunday.

Cockroaches.

Scorpions!

TARANTULAS!!

Most people wouldn’t get near any of them without a rolled-up newspaper or a can of Raid.

But a hands-on visit with a few of these remarkably docile critters will open your eyes to a beautiful world that is alive underfoot.

Giant Madagascan hissing cockroaches, black emperor scorpions that turn green under ultraviolet light and a Mexican red-kneed tarantula named Connie are some of the stars of Southern California’s only traveling insect zoo, which stops at the South Coast Botanic Garden this weekend.

“We can beat several of your phobias in a day,” said Arthur V. Evans, director of the Ralph M. Parsons Insect Zoo Preview, which, while permanently installed at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, tours the area as the Traveling Insect Zoo.

Evans knows how it feels. The 34-year-old entomologist, who earned his doctorate in scarab beetles at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, spent most of his career afraid of spiders. But when he became director of the newly created insect zoo two years ago, he decided it was time to kick the fear.

After several days of putting his hand next to the aquarium holding the zoo’s most illustrious spider--Maggie, a 19-year-old red-kneed tarantula that has been held in captivity for 12 years--Evans finally summoned the courage to reach in and (ugh, can you believe it?) pick her up.

“It was kind of exhilarating,” said Evans. “Once I got over my initial fear, it was fine.”

In an attempt to earn recognition for one of the museum’s only exhibits with living creatures, Evans in the past year has gone on the road with his bug zoo, stopping at dozens of schools, garden clubs and science fairs.

“Insects are a great introduction to natural history,” Evans said. “So many kids who grow up in the city never have an understanding of the insects and animals that live around them. I’m not trying to turn kids into biologists, but I do want to make them aware of the natural world and maybe make them think twice before they grind something under their heel.”

Evans’ 45-minute presentations are broad and generously sprinkled with humor, ranging from the ecological significance of insects to their role in the arts and literature. He can talk about the beetle in Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Hollywood’s “Arachnophobia.”

Noting that “butterflies don’t have the stigma of insects because they’re pretty like birds,” Evans is quick to point out that insects “have been around longer than the dinosaurs” and that they are humans’ No. 1 competitor for food on the planet.

“We have exalted ourselves to think we are the pinnacle of creation, and yet we still can’t build a house that keeps out cockroaches and ants.”

Evans also talks about the things insects help produce--like honey, fruit and silk--and, depending on the age of his audience, may use hand puppets to describe metamorphosis, the process by which caterpillars turn into butterflies.

The highlight of the show, however, is when the audience comes up for a personal encounter with the creatures themselves.

If the crowd is small, he allows those who are interested to touch and even hold them.

“Connie is probably the most popular,” Evans said of the tarantula. “She’s big. She’s hairy. And while a lot of people have a very negative impression of spiders, they can relate to her in a totally different way, in the same way they may relate to a hamster.”

And breaking down the barriers that prevent people from getting close to insects is the goal of the traveling zoo.

“Most of us go through life being occasionally annoyed by them or just trying to escape from their presence,” Evans said. “But there are a few of us who don’t know what we would be doing without them.”

What: Ralph M. Parsons Traveling Insect Zoo

Where: South Coast Botanic Garden, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula

When: Sunday, 2 p.m.

Admission: $3 for adults, $1.50 for seniors, 75 cents for youths ages 5-12; free for South Coast Botanic Garden Foundation members.

Information: 544-6815