#Spotted zebra butterfly free

What: celebration of the popular feature includes entertainment, a photo booth, crafting stations and educational activities on the main meadow and a ticketed live butterfly release inside the Butterfly House Botanica’s Butterfly House 25th anniversary celebration “They did such a good job last year that the native butterflies swarmed so much and there were tons of caterpillars in these beds … so the gardening work here supports not just the butterflies inside the house but the native monarchs as well,” Smith said. Visitors can also find more butterflies in the gardens outside the Butterfly House and leading up to a butterfly garden that was established in 1992 since gardeners have planted plenty of pollinator plants, like milkweed that monarch butterflies favor and salvia, along that stretch. “So, at some point, a storm happened and pushed them off course” to bring them to Kansas, Baker explained.Īt any given time, about 24 species can be found flying around the enclosure, she said. The USDA, which regulates the type of butterflies that can be displayed, allows non-native butterflies if it can be proven that a species was spotted at least once within Sedgwick County. Nearly all the species that visitors see in the Butterfly House are native to Kansas, but the malachites are an example of a tropical butterfly usually found throughout Central and northern South America. Other species on display that afternoon included the zebra longwing, the spicebush swallowtail, Julia and the great Southern white.

Green and blue pupas of malachite butterflies were hanging on the next row. They hung right next to the similar-colored but smaller chrysalises of the monarch butterfly. The pale green-colored pupas of the orange-barred sulfur butterflies were among the larger ones displayed.

“And you can see the variety,” added Baker, as she pointed out some of the differences among the chrysalises. It’s unusual for people to be able to see that hatching process because at other places they are kept in back or isolated areas, but here at Botanica you get to watch the hatching process,” Smith said. I glue their little bottoms to tissue paper and that’s how I pin them up,” Baker said, pointing to the chrysalises that were dangling from rods within the hatching station.ĭisplayed at the back of the Butterfly House, the hatching station is one of the features that separates Botanica’s Butterfly House from others found elsewhere, according to Baker and Botanica’s community engagement coordinator Nikki Smith. “They are shipped overnight by FedEx, and I have to drop whatever I’m doing in the gardens and immediately get them to start getting them out of the box. Besides Malone’s farm in Wichita, farms in Florida also supply Botanica with the pupas. Botanica brings in about 150 to 300 chrysalises every week to keep the Butterfly House populated with insects from late May to August.

#Spotted zebra butterfly free

This year he became vice president of the International Butterfly Breeders Association.īecause the Butterfly House is a controlled environment -kept relatively free from predators like wasps and ants and providing plenty of nectar-rich plants like lantana and penta - Botanica’s indoor butterflies can live a little longer than the normal two- or three-week lifespan. He started raising butterflies in 2019 when he was working as a gardener at Botanica and now is one of the regular suppliers for Botanica. Malone, who runs the Hatchery Butterfly Farm in his backyard in the Riverside area, is supplying most of the live butterflies for Saturday’s release.

Those activities are included in the regular Botanica admission. The Flint Hills Fairies troupe, the Riverside Music Together center and local butterfly farmer Ryan Malone will be there, along with a photo booth, craft-making stations and educational activities. as the botanical garden celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Butterfly House. Several other activities are planned for that day on Botanica’s main meadow from 11 a.m.