what animals can live perfectly with butterflies?

Y

yousuf89

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
due to the high humidity and temperature that the butterflies required
I've seen koi fish, turtles and crocodiles can live together with them (due they can ignore or love high humidity and temperature)
but what kind of other animals can live perfectly with butterflies or in a butterfly house?
well without eating or hurting the butterflies
 
There are Victoria Crowned Pigeons and Poison Dart Frogs in the butterfly house at Artis Zoo (Amsterdam). You might want to look into that arrangement, I don't know any more about it other than seeing it as a visitor.
 
Dart frogs, yes. Nectivorous birds too. Crowned pigeons though will eat invertebrates. Things like adult crocodiles will obviously not bother them.

Stick insects, fruit beetles and the like will, but tend to get lost to visitors when free roaming. But herbivores/detrivores are fine.
 
The Houston Museum of Natural Science keeps an iguana, I think it's a green iguana, in their butterfly house.

The rainforest part of Moody Gardens has a butterfly area in addition to a huge variety of other animals, though the butterfly area is separated with nets so the other animals don't get to them, so I'm not sure which of the species would post a threat to butterflies.
 
At Twycross they have Victoria Crowned Pigeon in the Butterfly House and at Chester they have some butterflies in the Reticulated Python enclosure.
 
At Bristol they have Black-naped Fruit Doves with their butterflies - these regularly breed. I expect most of the similar fruit-eating doves would also mix well
 
Tropical Wings Zoo has their butterflies mixed in with a variety of birds that has, over the years, included both white-cheeked and red-crested turacos, speckled mousebirds, bronze sunbirds, Costa's hummingbird, Japanese quail and Hottentot teal along with koi carp in a large pond.

I remember the Butterfly Farm at Rutland Water having red-eared sliders, some sort of hingeback tortoise, green iguanas, African giant snails and a variety of birds. Stratford-Upon-Avon Butterfly Farm also mixes free-flying butterflies with green iguanas, speckled mousebirds, Chinese painted quail and a variety of small parrots.
 
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SealPup said:
Crowned pigeons though will eat invertebrates.
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Generally, no, they won't. I've worked with several vic's ranging from hatchlings to breeding pairs and everything in between, and I've never seen them go for any sort of bug, let alone one that is fast, flighted, and hard to catch.

That said, like the others have said, most fruit, nectar or leaf eating birds do fine with Butterflies including hummingbirds, sun birds, tanagers, fruit doves, most galliform type birds, touracos, flamingos, and the vast majority of hookbills.

Many reptiles also do well, as mentioned Iguanas work well, as do tortoises and day geckos. Much smaller animals such as anoles, flying dragons, and small wall hugging geckos work too.
 
All interesting, though I have seen it said that Goura in the wild will consume crabs to obtain calcium. In context this was reconstruction of dodo behaviour and ecology from living relatives, it was not a primary source, but presumably it was in the lit somewhere.

How many people count small invertebrates exactly in a free roaming tropical exhibit? I'm sure some must go missing, which at least raises the question of exactly how...
 
Chinese painted quail are recomended in butterfly houses as they help keep down the spiders I read once.
 
SealPup said:
All interesting, though I have seen it said that Goura in the wild will consume crabs to obtain calcium. In context this was reconstruction of dodo behaviour and ecology from living relatives, it was not a primary source, but presumably it was in the lit somewhere.
How many people count small invertebrates exactly in a free roaming tropical exhibit? I'm sure some must go missing, which at least raises the question of exactly how...
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The thing with inverts is they can die off quite fast especially if conditions fluctate to much even for even a short time, especialy temps. then there are parasites and diseases that can wipe out colonys as wel,l by the time it has been noticed it can have become too big a problem to control. Same with preditors, such as wasps or spiders. I kept catapillers in a rather handy IKEA net laundry bag last summer, it was only when they didn't seam to be eating a lot I discoverd common wasps (Vespa sp.) had found a way into my shed and then into the suspended bag with my caterpillers, and were feeding away on them. I believ it is the smell of the frass or droppings that attract them.
 
Hyak_II said:
Generally, no, they won't. I've worked with several vic's ranging from hatchlings to breeding pairs and everything in between, and I've never seen them go for any sort of bug, let alone one that is fast, flighted, and hard to catch.

That said, like the others have said, most fruit, nectar or leaf eating birds do fine with Butterflies including hummingbirds, sun birds, tanagers, fruit doves, most galliform type birds, touracos, flamingos, and the vast majority of hookbills.

Many reptiles also do well, as mentioned Iguanas work well, as do tortoises and day geckos. Much smaller animals such as anoles, flying dragons, and small wall hugging geckos work too.
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From the herps you mention I only can agree with the tortoises and adult Green iguanas, all the others will surtainly prey on the butterflies and / or the caterpillars !
From the birds you mention sunbirds also will catch now and then a butterfly or caterpillar but evenso it can be done because they only rarely will do this.
Tanager I would never keep together with butterflies because many/most species have invebrates on their menu and even small vetebrates are not safe ! I've seen a Golden tanager ( Tangara arthus ) eating a small anole ! Also most galliform birds will surtainly eat butterflies and caterpillars.
At the old Emmen Zoo some Painted quails were kept in the Butterfly-hall and this was because they preyed on the spiders which were also a danger for the butterflies and the caterpillars they took now and then were a lesser problem as the spiders.
I would say that doves in general, mousebirds, touracos, most parakeets and parrots and hummingbirds would be nice auditions to butterfly-enclosures.
 
vogelcommando said:
From the herps you mention I only can agree with the tortoises and adult Green iguanas, all the others will surtainly prey on the butterflies and / or the caterpillars !
From the birds you mention sunbirds also will catch now and then a butterfly or caterpillar but evenso it can be done because they only rarely will do this.
Tanager I would never keep together with butterflies because many/most species have invebrates on their menu and even small vetebrates are not safe ! I've seen a Golden tanager ( Tangara arthus ) eating a small anole ! Also most galliform birds will surtainly eat butterflies and caterpillars.
At the old Emmen Zoo some Painted quails were kept in the Butterfly-hall and this was because they preyed on the spiders which were also a danger for the butterflies and the caterpillars they took now and then were a lesser problem as the spiders.
I would say that doves in general, mousebirds, touracos, most parakeets and parrots and hummingbirds would be nice auditions to butterfly-enclosures.
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but what about two toed sloth or ducks
i know reptiles and amphibians love humidity
and what about some of the birds that can withstand the humidity
 
Cincinnati Zoo has had a wide range of bird species sharing space with their butterflies over the years. From the top of my head, there have been (among others) cotingas (including cocks-of-the-rock), fruit doves, African pygmy geese, and gray peacock pheasant (I believe there have been tanagers as well). Turtles of various species have also shared the spaces over the years. The number and precise mix of species has varied and often the zoo is not the best at keeping the signage up to date, so it can be difficult to know what you'll find from visit to visit (besides the butterflies).
 
Rotterdam has Amazonica with a lot of South American animals, including anacondas and freshwater stingrays.

Chinese quail are quite common in Europe as a pest control. There are also occasionally parrots, parakeets, turacos, finches, sunbirds and hummingbirds.

About heat and humidity: this would be good environment for big reptiles like crocodiles, monitor lizards, constrictor snakes or giant tortoises. These are often under-heated in zoos. I can imagine that some other especially heat-loving animals would fare good, for example shoebills or pygmy hippos. It would be easy to design some dark short corridor of flaps of plastic for a pygmy hippo to pass outside.

I see also no reason why not tamanduas, sloths, agoutis or squirrels?
 
Jurek7 said:
I see also no reason why not tamanduas, sloths, agoutis or squirrels?
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Many squirrel species will eat insects.
Ground squirrels in particular (as well as other squirrel species) eat caterpillars.
Many squirrels also eat injured butterflies.
 
jibster said:
Cincinnati Zoo has had a wide range of bird species sharing space with their butterflies over the years. From the top of my head, there have been (among others) cotingas (including cocks-of-the-rock), fruit doves, African pygmy geese, and gray peacock pheasant (I believe there have been tanagers as well). Turtles of various species have also shared the spaces over the years. The number and precise mix of species has varied and often the zoo is not the best at keeping the signage up to date, so it can be difficult to know what you'll find from visit to visit (besides the butterflies).
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To be 100% specific on this, as of now they share the atrium with one spangled Cotinga and two white-naped pheasant pigeons, and an African helmeted Turtle. So the signage is actually up to date. It used to also hold Jambu fruit doves, golden headed manakins, pygmy geese, blue ground doves, like you said, cock-of-the rocks for about a week (they kept attacking orange haired people), but I don't believe tanagers have ever been in there as they were displayed elsewhere. At least recently.
 
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Moebelle said:
To be 100% specific on this, as of now they share the atrium with one spangled Cotinga and two white-naped pheasant pigeons, and an African helmeted Turtle. So the signage is actually up to date. It used also hold Jambu fruit doves, golden headed manakins, pygmy geese, blue ground doves, like you said, cock-of-the rocks for about a week (they kept attacking orange haired people), but I don't believe tanagers have ever been in there as they were displayed elsewhere. At least recently.
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what about in california academy of science
they have various species of tanagers over there
 
yousuf89 said:
what about in california academy of science
they have various species of tanagers over there
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I'm sorry I don't quite understand the coalition to my comment. I was giving them the species list to Cincinnati's bird atrium in their insect attraction.
 
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