Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden
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Sara longwing butterflies (Heliconius sara) feed on the nectar of lantana (Lantana camara) and other flowers.
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A favorite place for many Zoo visitors in the winter is the Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden. Located in the Wildlife Interpretive Gallery, this innovative habitat features hundreds of butterflies from Central and South America. Every day of the year visitors come face to face with hundreds of butterflies, five hummingbirds and two swallow tannangers as they fly freely through the lush indoor Garden.
The hummingbirds arrived in 2007 from a facility in Canada and quickly acclimated to the Garden. The group consists of a pair of giant hummingbirds (Patagonia gigas), a pair of Peruvian sheartails (Thaumastura cora) and a male sparkling violet-ear (Colibri coruscans). They are all from Peru and range in size from one of the smallest species of hummingbirds, only 1.5 inches long, to the largest species, measuring 7 inches long.
The butterflies are raised by butterfly farmers in Costa Rica and El Salvador. None of the butterflies are collected from the wild and our suppliers are actively involved in butterfly conservation efforts in their home countries. The farmers supply their caterpillars (immature butterflies) with appropriate plant food, called host plants, and care for them until they form chrysalises. Every week the Zoo receives a shipment of 200-300 chrysalises of up to 40 different species of butterflies from the butterfly farms. Over the course of a year the Zoo receives about 70 different species of butterflies.
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Stachytarpheta jamaicensis), is one of the many flowers that provide nectar for butterflies such as the Mexican longwing (Heliconius hortense).
Porterweed, or snakeplant (
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The chrysalises are carefully packed in insulated containers and shipped with a two-day express delivery courier. When a shipment of chrysalises arrives at the Zoo, it is carefully unpacked and inspected by a zookeeper. The zookeeper attaches the chrysalises inside a special display area in the Garden where the butterflies emerge when their metamorphosis is complete. The process of butterfly metamorphosis can take anywhere from several days to several months but most of the butterflies we receive emerge from their chrysalises within a couple of weeks. When a butterfly emerges it unfolds its wings and hangs from the empty chrysalis until it dries. After it is dry it is carefully released into the Garden.
The butterflies in the Garden can be observed engaging in many of their natural behaviors including feeding on flower nectar or ripe fruit, basking in the sunlight, territory defense and mating. Although they may mate, adult female butterflies will not lay eggs unless they find a plant with the specific chemical signal that indicates the right food source for caterpillars (host plant). We do not include any host plants in the Garden so the butterflies simply do not lay eggs. Raising caterpillars in our garden is prohibited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture because they are non-native, plant-eating species that may pose a risk to our local environment if they are not carefully controlled and contained. Also, because each female can potentially lay over 100 eggs, it would be nearly impossible to keep enough plants growing in the garden to feed all the caterpillars! The adult butterflies live for about two weeks in the Garden, somewhat longer than they may survive in the wild because they are protected from predators and bad weather conditions. Some of the butterflies in the Garden have been observed over two months after emerging from their chrysalises!
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