By Kathleen Berger, Executive Producer for Science and Technology

October is the one month that David Bruns, a conservation educator for the Missouri Department of Conservation, avoids talking about particular spiders.

“In this case I’ll make an exception,” Bruns said. “This is really the time of year that we have our seasonal infestation of giant, monstrous spiders in many of our neighborhoods.”

Bruns is referring to porch and yard spiders that are part of Halloween decorations!

As a conservation educator, Bruns has an abundance of Missouri spiders for show-and-tell.  These include the real spiders he collects, along with thousands of unique photographs.

“I don’t know of anybody that has as large of a collection of digital images of spider diversity as myself,” he said. “All of the digital images I collected have data connected to that.”

Bruns may have the largest collection of photographs of spiders in the Midwest. It’s combining art with science, yet Bruns realizes one common perception people have.

“The thing about spiders is, they’re freaky!”

Bruns wants people to become familiar and not afraid.

“The spider has absolutely no interest in biting anybody,” he said.

“Missouri has over 450 spider species that have been documented, and there’s probably about 50 more that just haven’t been found and documented at this time,” said Bruns. “Of all those hundreds of species, there’s really only two species that have medically significant venom for humans. That would be the brown recluse and the black widow.”

Bruns wants people to know that almost all spiders are harmless and they good for the environment. For example, spiders eat the insects that harm trees, food crops and gardens.

“Spiders are unsung, freaky heroes and their superpower isn’t just the diversity of spiders, but it’s their abundance,” Bruns explained. “Just imagine what would happen if those spiders weren’t there.”

So, for Halloween, Bruns said it’s okay to have fun.

“You know, Halloween is the one day of the year people celebrate spiders, only we celebrate them as monsters.”

Which Bruns said is okay, because those spiders are make-believe.