Step into their parlor

HERE’S one way to clear out the Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County: Fill it with spiders. For the first time, Insect Zoo coordinator Brent Karner has organized a living exhibit of the family Araneidae, or orb-weaving spiders. Visitors will be led in groups by “gallery interpreters,” people who know where the spiders are. The insects should not be hard to find. Not all spiders weave webs; some hunt. Karner has gathered only the most elegant spinners. The show will include exotic specimens, such as the enormous Floridian golden silk spider, or Nephila clavipes, whose gigantic webs already overhang bone piles of swallowtail butterfly wings. Then there are more familiar spiders -- even beloved ones -- such as the black and yellow garden spider, or Argiope aurantia, above, with a Monarch butterfly in its web. The zigzagging in the center of the web, known as stabilimenta, caught the attention of “Charlotte’s Web” author E.B. White, says Karner. “It got him thinking how a spider could weave a message.” For anyone wondering how the messages kept changing, the Argiopes -- or Charlotte to young readers -- eat their webs each night and re-spin them. Gallery interpreters also will be performing experiments for children by combining chemicals to show how spider silk is formed, and teachers may observe craft projects that involve using string to make webs. The Spider Pavilion opens Sunday and runs through Nov. 6 at the museum, 900 Exposition Blvd. Pavilion tickets are sold independently of museum admission: Adults, $3; students/seniors, $2; children ages 5 to 12, $1. Go to www.nhm.org or call (213) 763-DINO.

-- Emily Green