14 SEPTEMBER 11-17, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Respiderment ROSIE THE TARANTULA IS RETIRING FROM MEET AND GREETS AFTER THIRTY YEARS AT THE BUTTERFLY PAVILION. BY KRISTEN FIORE Over three decades, Rosie crawled into thou- sands of palms, her eight hairy legs unexpect- edly soft and her demeanor surprisingly gentle for a spider larger than a child’s hands. Over the years, holding Rosie the Chilean rose hair tarantula became almost synony- mous with visits to the Butterfl y Pavilion in Westminster during birthdays, fi eld trips or just for fun. But now Rosie is tired and ready to dust off the guitar she gave up years ago, join a book club, play some mahjong and retire. The Butterfl y Pavilion announced in August that beginning September 8, Rosie would transition from a public handling experience to a dedicated exhibit home, where visitors will be able to see her but no longer hold her. Those who are brave enough to get up close and personal (or invertebral?) with bugs will still have the opportunity to do so through new programming and the But- terfl y Pavilion’s upcoming Spiders Around the World exhibit. The decision to retire Rosie has been in the making for several years, according to Sara Stevens, director of animal collections at the Butterfl y Pavilion. “As our tarantulas have been aging, they’ve been telling us through stress signs and behaviors that they’re just not up for the handling anymore, and it’s starting to diminish their welfare,” she explains. As with any proper mascot, there’s not just one Rosie. The Butterfl y Pavilion kept eight to ten Rosies in rotation so that the spiders would only work two hours each week and have long rest periods, as walking from palm to palm can be strenuous for the spiders, which don’t usually walk a lot in the wild unless they have to. In addition to the handleable Rosies, the Butterfl y Pavilion’s nursery has about fi fty baby Rosies between the ages of two and eight years, which is too young for handling. The spiders aren’t mature enough to be handled until they are ten to twelve years old, Stevens says. The females can live for up to thirty years; the males die shortly after reaching sexual maturity, around the ages of seven to twelve. Once the spiders are old enough, they go through personality testing. “We engage with them and see how they react to stimuli,” Stevens says. “We tap behind them in their enclosure to see if they show signs of aggres- sion or don’t seem to mind.” Then the spiders are gradually handled for short amounts of time and their responses tracked. Finally, the spi- ders are sorted into three categories — green: good for handling with guests; yellow: skittish; red: spicy. “They’re feistier and don’t want to engage at all,” Stevens says of the red spiders. “Those Rosies can be uti- lized for display, sent to other zoos or go into our breeding program.” A couple of years ago, the But- terfl y Pavilion introduced Goldie, a chaco golden knee tarantula, to the lineup of meet-and-greets to lessen Rosie’s burden. But as the taran- tulas aged and more data became available, the Butterfl y Pavilion fi - nally decided to end that offering. “By collecting that data across the last decade, we’ve really been able to see this trend starting to form where our animals are telling us it’s time for them to have a long- awaited rest,” Stevens says. Although invertebrates like Rosie make up 97 percent of all animal species, they’re often critically un- derstudied compared to more charismatic animals like elephants or primates, Stevens. “We’ve done a lot of work here at Butterfl y Pavilion to make sure we’re providing the same level of care to our elephant beetles that you would to an elephant,” she adds. “A lot of that decision-making is based on hav- ing to create a lot of that science ourselves.” In the meantime, the Butterfl y Pavilion has started introducing new ways to learn about invertebrates. “Guests have been able to see some of our new programming, like stick insects that they could meet up close and personal, cockroaches they can touch, and programming where they can see some of our animals eat and engage with their food,” Stevens says. “The idea was to start showing these new, engaging opportunities with a new host of characters. Rosie is just a very small drop in a big ocean of charismatic animals that can talk about invertebrates and how important they are.” Rosie helped a lot of people through their fear of spiders, which is very often a learned behavior. “We see a lot of times that it’s the adults who are terrifi ed of our tarantulas, while the kids are full of curiosity and en- gagement,” Stevens says. “What Rosie did was provide an opportunity for people to have that fi rst foundational and fundamental experience with a large spider be a positive one — something they were excited for, a rite of passage. It created an opportunity to change the conversation about spiders to be something that was exciting, as opposed to something to run away from.” Even Stevens, who talks about spiders with the same passion that most Denver residents show when they talk about their dogs, was skeptical of the big, hairy arachnids at fi rst. When she started working at the Butterfl y Pavilion about ten years ago, her background was in marine biology. She was terrifi ed of spiders and knew very little about bugs. But over time, she fell in love with taran- tulas and their distinct personalities and unique quirks. She even has her own pet tarantula now. As a natural form of pest control, tarantu- las play an important role in any ecosystem they inhabit, and they’re native to Colorado. In fact, the La Junta Tarantula Festival, happening September 26-27 this year, is an annual celebration of the thousands of male tarantulas that prowl the countryside in search of a mate during an early autumn ritual. Turns out even spiders have a cuff- ing season. Even though guests at the Butterfl y Pa- vilion won’t be able to hold Rosie anymore, there will still be plenty of opportunities to learn about and interact with spiders. The upcoming Spiders Around the World will have many different kinds of spiders on display, but the arachnids will truly take over the facility in the exhibit’s Spider Zone, where part of the butterfl y conservatory is netted off and fi lled with hundreds of orb-weaving spiders. “These are a mix of spiders native to the United States, like golden orb-weavers or yellow garden spiders, and we also usually bring in our giant Malaysian orb-weavers, which are a very large orb-weaving spider with a legspan that’s about the size of a grapefruit,” Stevens says. While the butterfl ies won’t be able to get into the Spider Zone, humans will. “You’re in there, there’s no glass,” Stevens clarifi es. “You walk into the Spider Zone and are sur- rounded by hundreds of spiders. You can get within inches of them.” Uhh...is there any possibility they might crawl up someone’s pants? “No,” Stevens says. “They don’t really move much during the day; they’re protective of their web. Sometimes they move at night and rebuild their web.” And that many different kinds of spiders can just co-exist like that? “Yeah,” Stevens replies. “We make sure we feed them lots. They get fed about three times a day.” Two of those feedings are usually done during the Butterfl y Pavilion’s open hours so that people can watch. “Animals, like people, tend to like the easy meal,” Stevens adds. “If they don’t have to work for it, that’s ideal, so by making sure they’re getting fed constantly throughout the day, it minimizes any risk to their neighbors.” Big, beautiful webs aside, it still sounds like an absolute nightmare for arachno- phobes. Or maybe it’s exposure therapy? “We’ve had people who are self-proclaimed arachnophobes come into our Spider Zone and talk to our interpretation staff about how meaningful the experience was and how the fear was unfounded,” Stevens says. With Rosie taking a break, other ani- mals can now get some deserved attention. “There’s a lot of other animals out there that deserve a similar spotlight,” Stevens says, “that people are nervous about or afraid of, that we can help de-ickify, like cockroaches or millipedes.” Well, Rosie showed us we could love a spider. So why not? Visit Rosie in her new display at the Butterfl y Pa- vilion, 6252 West 104th Avenue, Westminster. Spiders Around the World runs from September 26 to October 31, with trick-or-treating events October 18, 19, 25, 26 and 31. CULTURE KEEP UP ON DENVER ARTS AND CULTURE AT WESTWORD.COM/ARTS Rosie has been the star of the Butterfl y Pavilion for thirty years. BUTTERFLY PAVILION
