Starting last year (as far as I know), the Butterfly Pavilion has done a seasonal display of spiders for Halloween. For the month of October they have more spiders on display in all of their various sections, including orbweavers in an open-air area that you can walk through to get up close to them.

The snow from the previous couple of days had dampened some of my Halloween enthusiasm, but this was one of the things we'd hoped to do for the holiday, and I'm glad we did!

A favorite of the tarantulas for the day, a type of Indian ornamental. Such yellow knees! Such fuzzy toes!

Green-bottle blue tarantula. Always a favorite, so colorful!

Brazilian black tarantula. This one made Alex nostalgic for one he had as a pet.

I forget which kind this is - some type of ornamental arboreal type. Look how fluffy!

A rear-horned baboon tarantula! She crawled out from the little hide behind her - she seemed too big for it, though she was obviously comfortable enough.

Little baby rosehair!

One of the free-range orbweavers. So cool!

This one had a snack!

A black widow. :)

This year we've had more black widows "in the wild" than usual, apparently due to the early rains this year and the generally higher moisture. My mom and Taylor had one show up in their house (first in the bathroom, then suddenly next to Taylor's computer, then relocated to the basement.) First time we've had a black widow inside! They named her "Ophelia". (After the Addams family cousin; my aunt had two black widows in her barn that she'd named Morticia and Wednesday.)

Mexican red-knee tarantula.