The Butterfly Conservatory draws thousands of visitors each year, transporting them to a tropical ecosystem lush with vivid, live flowers and filled with hundreds of spectacular butterflies and moths. But while the flora and fauna are quite real, the conservatory is the product of careful planning and design by the Museum’s Exhibition Department, which creates a “natural” garden using artificial lighting, precipitation, and climate control.
Manager of Living Exhibits Hazel Davies, who has been involved with the conservatory for more than a decade, and her team start from scratch each year by determining what species to include and where to get the plants and live specimens.
Choosing the plants is an art in itself. Following U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations, the Museum prevents the butterflies from breeding by avoiding any plants that serve as their natural hosts; butterflies are particular about where they lay eggs because the host plant will also provide food to the caterpillars that hatch. Suitability to different light levels, variations in texture and structures, and other factors are also considered in plant selection.
As for the fauna, the butterflies and moths that inhabit the exhibition—usually 550 to 600 individual butterflies, representing about 130 species—come from farms all over the world: Florida, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Kenya, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia. When selecting species, Davies looks for ones that flutter or, if sedentary, are especially showy, such as the huge and spectacular Atlas moth. She aims to include species that are active at different times of day to ensure a lively experience for all visitors.
[Beat of a musical instrument. Two fluttering orange-and-black butterflies near the same leaf, one sitting, one flying. A yellow butterfly lands amid foliage.]
Voice of Hazel Davies: Come visit the tropics at the American Museum of Natural History's Butterfly Conservatory,
[Close-up on one butterfly, focus change, another butterfly in the foreground appears.]
where you can walk through lush green foliage
[A striped butterfly sits on a different leaf.]
and blooming tropical flowers,
[Close-up of chrysalises hanging in a row, first a row of brown, then a row of green.]
all while learning about the butterfly life cycle, how butterflies live, and
[Several different butterflies flutter around leaves of a plant.]
why they're important in the environment.
[Close-up of a yellow-and-black butterfly hanging on a plant.]
There are over 500 individual butterflies at any time in the Conservatory,
[Wide shot of conservatory, with fluttering butterflies amid greenery.]
representing over 100 species, from countries as far-flung as Thailand, Brazil,
[Several butterflies fluttering around, landing on, or sitting in the feeding discs.]
Kenya, Australia, and beyond.
[Slow-motion of a sitting butterfly flapping its wings. Another butterfly flutters in the green. A third butterfly lands on the edge of a feeding disk. Another sits on a leaf. A pair of other butterflies flutter around a plant, others are shown sitting on leaves, showing variety of species referred to in voiceover.]
Meet species like the cruiser, longwing, julia, paperkite, and owl butterfly.
[A large butterfly shown sitting on an outstretched arm.]
One may even land on you. Find your favorite butterfly out of hundreds.
[Butterfly sitting on a feeding disk takes off. A close-up on a sitting butterfly.]
at the American Museum of Natural History's Butterfly Conservatory.
[Text on screen: Plan your visit to the Butterfly Conservatory today. www.amnh.org/butterflies]
Since many species live only a few weeks or even just a few days, new supplies of butterflies and moths arrive every week to maintain the exhibition’s population. Butterflies are shipped in the chrysalis stage, a period of days or weeks when they are enclosed in a hard natural shell and can be wrapped in tissue or foam and safely sent by courier. About two weeks before the exhibition opens to the public, the earliest butterfly arrivals are released into their new home, bringing a burst of color and activity to the conservatory.
Caring for the butterflies and maintaining the conservatory requires trained staff onsite seven days a week. In addition, more than 120 trained volunteers work in groups of four for two-hour shifts each day to answer questions, interpret the exhibition, and point out interesting facts to visitors, which can number as many as 350 an hour. A key job requirement is the ability to withstand the high temperature and humidity—80 degrees Fahrenheit and 80 percent humidity—for hours at a stretch. Those who can take the heat get front-row seats to see the effect exotic butterflies have on human visitors—awe, delight, and occasionally marriage proposals, which occur with some frequency, especially on Valentine’s Day.