By Ruth Thornton
WKTV Contributor
greer@wktv.org
Around a quarter million people are once again expected to experience the 31st annual tropical butterfly exhibition at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, escaping the cold and blustery Michigan spring weather for a few hours.
More than 7,000 butterflies from Central and South America, Asia and Africa will delight visitors at Fred and Dorothy Fichter Butterflies are Blooming, the nation’s largest temporary tropical butterfly exhibition. It runs from March 1 through April 30 at 1000 East Beltline Ave. NE in Grand Rapids.
The first butterfly exhibit was held the year Frederik Meijer Gardens opened, said Wendy Overbeck Dunham, the director of horticulture.
“The idea was that in Michigan in March and April, we’re past the beauty of winter and we’ve made it to that stage where things aren’t quite warm enough to do stuff outside,” Overbeck Dunham said. ”You can visit the tropics without even leaving West Michigan this way.”
Visitors come from Michigan and beyond
Visitors flock to see the butterflies from Michigan and beyond. “We do see people from all over the United States during this exhibition,” said John VanderHaagen, the director of communications.
Visiting from eastern Michigan were Lori and Mike Wuerth from Romeo, who made the trip to see the butterflies.
They said they often watch butterflies and are members of the Detroit Zoo, which also boasts a butterfly house, and have visited butterfly exhibitions in Michigan and in Canada. This exhibition rivals the nicest they had seen, they said.
Every year is different
The types of butterflies differ from year to year.
“Butterflies are farmed just like fruit crops are farmed,” Overbeck Dunham said. “Availability can depend on season, weather. Whether it’s been rainy, whether it’s been unusually cold where they come from, whether it’s been extra dry.”
The bustle starts well before the exhibition’s opening day: butterflies start arriving in mid-February. That’s when the biggest shipments arrive from the farms and the huge tropical conservatory – five stories high and 15,000 square feet in size – starts filling with butterflies, she said.
On average, each butterfly lives and flies for about two weeks, depending on the species, so additional shipments keep coming until mid-April. “As the exhibit goes, we are still getting almost 1,000 in a week,” Overbeck Dunham said.
“And then by mid-May, there’ll be no more butterflies,” she said.
Every year, the exhibit gets anywhere from 60 to 85 species, ranging from the small Costa Rica clearwing (Greta oto), aptly named for its transparent wings, to the common morpho (Morpho peleides), a strikingly blue visitor favorite from Central and South America and one of the largest butterflies in the world. They also receive a few moth species, for example, the impressive green African moon moth (Argema mimosae) from sub-Saharan Africa.
Amber Nelson and her three girls, aged 8 years old and younger, from the Coopersville area, said the stunning blue common morph butterflies are their favorites.
Nelson said they’ve been coming to the butterfly exhibit for three or four years. “The kids just love the butterflies, their bright colors. And being able to have a nice, slow walk and look at the butterflies until we get hungry,” she said.
Butterflies are emerging throughout the exhibition
Butterflies are shipped not as the beautiful, winged adults, but in an immature stage called ‘chrysalis,’ created when the caterpillar forms a protective casing and transforms into a butterfly through a process known as ‘metamorphosis.’
A popular spot for adults and children alike is the observation station, where the newly arrived chrysalises are pinned on bars to hang, just like they would in their natural homes, until they transform into butterflies.
“When butterflies emerge, what they’ll do is they’ll actually use the chrysalis husk or shell, and they’ll hold onto that with their feet, their bodies,” Overbeck Dunham said. Their abdomens are initially swollen with liquid, and the wings are shriveled and folded.
As the butterflies hang in the observation station, they pump the liquid from their abdomen to the wings, expanding them as they’re preparing for flight.
When staff see that new butterflies are starting to fly around the observation station, they coax any that are ready into a little glass case for release into the larger butterfly exhibit.
“We’ll walk out of here with a full case of butterflies sometimes,” she said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to get pictures of a cluster – or kaleidoscope (of butterflies).”
Birds share the conservatory with the butterflies
Besides insects, visitors can expect to see several birds flying and running around the exhibition.
“We have a tropical bird collection in here from tropics around the world,” Overbeck Dunham explained. That includes finches, canaries and Chinese painted quail.
Some visitors are worried that the birds might eat butterflies, but staff make sure the insects are not in danger. “Our birds are primarily seed eaters, and that is intentional. So that when the butterflies are in here, there isn’t a conflict,” she said.
Overbeck Dunham has been working on the butterfly exhibit for more than 20 years, but it never grows old, she said.
“I get excited by it every year, it’s my favorite time of year,” she said. “If I’m in here and one is in the process (of emerging), I can’t help but stop and take a moment and watch, because it’s still just the coolest thing in the world to me.”
For more information about the exhibition, visit the Fred & Dorothy Fichter Butterflies are Blooming website. Tickets can be purchased online at MeijerGardens.org/tickets or at the entry desk. Multiple special events are featured throughout March and April, some of which require an RSVP.
