Butterfly Exhibits

F

foz

Well-Known Member
I was thinking.. most of the butterfly exhibits in the UK fall into these categories: either a polytunnel design or a greenhouse. and there is nothing that makes one stand out from the others. Does this apply outside the UK?

Are there any truly innovative butterfly exhibits out there? what's the best butterfly exhibit you've been to?
 
That looks awfully similar to the flight areas at the Tropical Butterfly House in North Anston, or Pili Palas on Anglesey, or the Isle of Wight Butterfly Centre (the first two of which also have reptiles and other animals as well).

It's bigger than most zoo butterfly houses, but among the specialist collections it doesn't look that special.


The thing is that a large greenhouse is pretty much a perfect way of displaying butterflies - it allows high temperatures and humidity and plenty of flying space. Combine Chester's structure with London's labelling and I'd be quite happy.

I'm not a massive fan of the polytunnel ones (London, Bristol) just because they look so impermanent. I was very glad that Chester went for something a bit more sturdy.
 
I recall the Butterfly House at Syon Park...twenty-five years ago? When we were planning the seasonal Butterfly exhibit at the Bronx Zoo it was one of my inspirations. The other was Butterfly World (Butterfly World) in Florida. But what we came up with was a 170' long, 25' tall, 50' wide temporary structure...that was used for ten years! See attached
 
Zooplantman said:
I recall the Butterfly House at Syon Park...twenty-five years ago? When we were planning the seasonal Butterfly exhibit at the Bronx Zoo it was one of my inspirations. The other was Butterfly World (Butterfly World) in Florida. But what we came up with was a 170' long, 25' tall, 50' wide temporary structure...that was used for ten years! See attached
Click to expand...

Is that a Giant caterpillar? :eek:

London has a similar exterior although beaneath it is just a polytunnel.

http://www.zoochat.com/43/butterfly-house-entrance-90220/
 
melbourne zoo has a very popular butterfly house thats been around since the about mid 80's. its a permanent greenhouse design and features butterflies from tropical northern australia. they recently expanded on this exhibit adding a number of other invertebrate displays next door for both native and exotic bugs. its quite rare for a zoo to have such a substantial invertebrate department and specifically they can be be awarded solely responsible for the recovery of the lord howe island stick insect that was until recently thought extinct.

the butterfly house itself is neither the largest or smallest butterfly display i've seen - but its very nicely done and usually features the odd pair of jungle birds - such as fruit doves and sunbirds if you can find them.

there are a number of photos of the house in the melbourne zoo gallery for those interested.
 
I've been to both butterfly houses in Cambridge, Ontario and Niagara Falls (just today) and both were of the greenhouse type. The Cambridge (Wings of Paradise) one was lovely, but the Niagara Falls one was very impressive. I was practically attacked by Blue Morphos :)
 
The Tucson Botanical Gardens, a very small five acre garden right in the middle of a busy urban area, does one inside their traditional greenhouse every year. It lasts for about 4 or 6 months (I forget). I have not been (although I have been to the gardens, which are not very exciting as you can imagine from the small size). It is just an ordinary greenhouse, not very exciting at all.

But here is the funny part. Butterly Magic, as they call it, is immensely popular even though the admission fee ($12 US) is higher than a full day admission to either of our two local zoos!
 
The butterfly exhibit in Emmen has been the biggest in europe for twenty years ( opened in 1985), very friendly towards people in a wheelchair, no higher than 5 metres so the butterflys will fly between the visitors and the plants, and there are between 1500 and 1800 butterflys flying around here.
 
Does the Emmen butterfly house still have hummingbirds in it? I thought that was a nice touch - the two complement each other rather well.
 
Yes, they still have the hummingbirds in the butterfly exhibit. And they have had offspring of the humming birds several times.
 
I suppose the main problem in butterfly exhibits is the risk of the butterflies being preyed on, especially by birds. Are there many out there with other species? - maybe iguanas or other vegetarian reptiles? Incidentally, Bristol has free-ranging Partula snails, but they are hard to spot unless you knwo where they hide
 
I know emmen has small flying lizards, some chinese ground dwelling birdspecies ( don't know the english or latin name, sorry for that), toads and hummingbirds in the butterfly exhibit, along with several smaller insect species, all added with the goal to eradicate plague insects. Except from the hummingbirds, the others are very rarely ( or never) seen.

But it should be possible to keep butterflys along with several other species. For example, parrots, macaws should not be a hazard towards butterflys, and a crocodile exhibit also could be easily placed in a butterfly exhibit ( not if it's just a small exhibit off course). And in a large tropical house it should be very easy to combine macaws, butterflys, turtles, iguana's, crocodiles, manatees and several fish species, so you could have a very attractive tropical house, without the necessity to keep the butterflys apart from the rest.
 
Melbourne Zoo used to have (maybe they still do?) fruit doves in their excellent butterfly house.
 
I've seen a number of different species of Draco in the wild in southeast Asia, but my understanding was that they were very difficult to keep alive in captivity because they feed exclusively on particular species of tree ants.

With regards to mixed exhibits, Singapore Zoo has a large walk-through aviary called the Fragile Forest which has butterflies in with flying foxes, sloths, tree kangaroos, ruffed and ring-tailed lemurs, mouse deer, and various bird species.
 
Jurek7 said:
Do you mean that Emmen currently keeps flying lizard Draco volans? This is animal I would like to see very much!
Click to expand...

As far as I know they are still there, but I don't know the anglish name. But don't go there hoping you will see them, the chances are very slim. I never saw them, and I pay a lot more attention then the average zoo-visitor;)

@ chlidonias;

That's the reason emmen has them. Tree-ants came along with some plants, and quickly became a plague. These flying lizards are part of an attempt to control the ants.
 
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