Insect Aficionados Show and Tell at Arboretum : Animals: Fair takes wing today with exhibits by 50 collectors and entomologists.

On his way to the Insect Fair, Roger Qualls got butterflies in his stomach.

The Mahomet, Ill., man was driving a truckload of fearsome tarantulas, fighting scorpions and giant beetles toward Arcadia when the car ahead of him suddenly skidded on ice and began careening crazily toward him.

“Believe me, my heart was in my throat,” Qualls said. “All I could think about was my collection and how everything could break if that car slammed into me.”

But Qualls managed to avoid a collision outside Flagstaff, Ariz., that would have smashed his unusual cargo: 115 hand-crafted glass bug boxes containing hundreds of fragile and rare insects that will be shown today and Sunday at the Insect Fair.

On Friday, the 44-year-old landscape architect arrived at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, where the unusual festival will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. both days. As he unpacked his precious creatures, he was relieved to find that not a single antenna, tarsus or forewing was out of place.

The fair will feature exhibits by about 50 insect collectors and entomologists and will include demonstrations of products ranging from wind-up insect toys to painted bug artwork, insect-eating plants, spider jewelry and methods of “computerized” insect control.

There will be discussions about mosquito control and a series of lectures Sunday on such topics as spiders in Los Angeles County, monarch butterfly migration, insects of the El Segundo Dunes and “the ash whitefly scourge.”

Collectors like Qualls will have mounted specimens for sale. But exhibitor Dan Capps, a 40-year-old mechanic from Madison, Wis., will give away hundreds of Texas and Mexican beetles that have been preserved and individually wrapped and labeled.

The Insect Fair was started five years ago by entomologist Steven Kutcher, a part-time college professor from Pasadena who supplies insect actors to the movie industry.

His creatures have had starring roles in “Arachnophobia” and in an upcoming television movie called “An Inconvenient Woman.” One of his flies harassed Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator”; hundreds of his stingless wasps terrorized Farrah Fawcett in “Extremities.”

But Kutcher was bugged by the fact that insects weren’t getting the respect they deserved in real life.

“Insects get a lot of bad press,” he said. “People say, ‘Oh, yuck,’ when you talk about insects. But they’re fascinated by them.”

Unfortunately, irksome houseflies and cockroaches are all that some people come in contact with, he said.

“I knew people with great insect collections in their houses that nobody ever had a chance to see,” said Kutcher, 47. “I thought how great it would be to have all these in one place for people to look at.”

His fellow collectors flocked to the arboretum like ants to a picnic when the first fair was staged in 1987. So did other insect professionals: an exterminating company wormed its way in as an early sponsor of the festival.

The public swarmed in too. Last year’s fair attracted more than 7,000 visitors.

“You hear on TV about the boat show,” Kutcher said. “I think we’re almost to that point. I think the Insect Fair is almost big enough to go to the Convention Center.”

Some people do get a kick out of bugs. But most bugs earn a stomp out of people, said Insect Fair chairman Art Evans. He is also curator of the newly created Ralph M. Parsons Insect Zoo at the county’s Natural History Museum at Exposition Park.

“People have very strong feelings about them: They either love them or hate them,” said Evans, 34, who keeps a personal collection of 100,000 beetles at his Sierra Madre apartment.

His insect zoo has 25 live animals on display. Several of them, including a three-inch hissing cockroach, will be exhibited at the Insect Fair. “Yes, they’re animals,” Evans quickly pointed out Friday. “Not all animals are furry and brown-eyed.”

Arboretum officials said the expected crush of bug-lovers has caused them to cancel other events this weekend at the 127-acre garden on Baldwin Avenue at the 210 Freeway. That includes wedding receptions, which are popular activities most Saturdays.

The arboretum grounds will remain open, however. Admission to the gardens and to the fair will be $3 for adults, $1.50 for teen-agers and 75 cents for children, said arboretum spokeswoman LuAnn Munns.

Special security officers have been hired to make certain that visitors don’t bug out with any of the insects.

“This year, we’re making sure we get guards who aren’t scared of bugs,” said Patricia Mannatt, an arboretum administrator.

“Last year, one of the insect guards had nightmares for three months after the fair.”