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Presented by Northwestern Mutual
Foundation Milwaukee County Zoo's Otto Borchert Family
Special Exhibits Building.
A display designed and populated
by Green Hills!
In 2003, Milwaukee
County Zoo brought back one of its most popular
exhibits: a fluttering of tropical butterflies amid
a rain-forest setting with Maya "ruins."
Designed and supplied by Jan
Meerman from Green Hills
Butterfly Ranch in Belize, The exhibit premiered
in summer 2000.
See the pictures and read the text that
was written for this exhibit. The
exhibit is now for sale or rent.
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If you're
looking for zebras, tigers, owls and cows at the Milwaukee
County Zoo this summer, you will find them in an unexpected
place. That's because zebras, Isabella tigers, owls
and Holsteins are all butterflies from Central America.
They'll be in the summer special exhibit, Butterflies
2003: Return to the Mundo Maya.
Within the mist-filled climate of this indoor exhibit,
you can view the brilliant orange Julia butterfly
(Dryas julia), the iridescent blue morpho (Morpho
peleides), the delicate glass-wing (Pteronymia
cotytto)
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with see-through wings, the postman (Heliconius
erato) with lipstick-red patches on each wing,
the bright yellow sulfur (Phoebis philea) ,
and the elegant green malachite (Siproeta stelenes).
If you're lucky, you may catch a glance of the white
morpho. The Blue Morpho's will be much more common
in the exhibit, and they also like to land on you,
especially if you're wearing bright colors. "They're
very people-friendly," says MaryLynn
Conter Strack", exhibit supervisor. "So
are the julias and the owl butterflies."
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Watch out for the Isabella
tigers (Eueides isabella) with their
striking yellow and orange stripes on a black background.
You can't miss the zebras (Heliconius charitonia),
which have a zebra-like pattern of yellow stripes
on a black background. And the Holsteins…well,
they have their own story (Find out more about the
complex life history of this species here).
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Holsteins are black and white dairy cows popular in Wisconsin.
The name originally comes from an area of Germany. When
visitors to his butterfly ranch kept asking Jan Meerman
what that black and white butterfly was (although under
proper light conditions, you can see that the black is really
metalic blue), "we jokingly named it the Holstein,"
he says. "The name has stuck."
The Holstein is only one of about 50 species of butterflies
on exhibit at the Zoo this summer. Because pupae emerge
at different times, 15 to 20 species will be on view at
anyone time. You can watch them emerge at the three pupae
cases. If you stand still, butterflies often will land on
you. The record number that landed and stayed on a visitor's
hat during the 2000 exhibit was eight, says Conter Strack.
She notes that if you want butterflies to land on you, don't
use insect repellent or sunscreen and wear clothes with
reds or yellows. The best time to visit is when the Zoo
opens, at 9 a.m., when the butterflies are most active.
When you're done and have exited the building, you can put
on insect repellent or sunscreen for the rest of your Zoo
visit.
"One of the things I enjoy most about the exhibit,"
adds Conter Strack, "is the look of astonishment on
the faces of people who are entering for the first time."
You come out of a cave into a light- filled garden of colorful
jewels, dangling from leaves, resting near your feet, fluttering
in the air. There's always something new to see.
Text addapted from Paula Brookmire, 2003.Alive
Magazine Spring/Summer 2003
This
display will be for rent/sale
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