Despite the rainy weather on opening day, the line for Carleton’s annual Biology Butterfly Show extended out into the street where attendees waited up to an hour and a half, according to Carleton’s greenhouse manager, Ed Bruggink.
More than 10,000 community members gather at the university’s greenhouse facilities in the Nesbitt Biology Building every year to view more than 500 free-flying butterflies. The show takes place for 10 days during October and displays about 50 species of butterfly.
Two new species of butterfly have been added to the show this year, the White Morpho and the Nemesis.
“I’m always looking for something different,” Bruggink said. “I try to keep the number of species up for the photographers.”
Butterflies are amazing pollinators and provide an excellent food source during their four stages of development to other creatures, according to Bruggink.
Let’s Talk Science, a science outreach group on campus, is giving guided tours at the show for schools that visit during the week.
Victor Malkov, a PhD student in Medical Physics who volunteers with Let’s Talk Science, said the tours give students the chance to learn why butterflies are important and how they affect the ecosystem.
“We get our volunteers to come out and guide the students through the greenhouse for the butterfly show or they’ll give them a lesson in the classroom about butterfly biology and their habits of how they spread around the world.”
This year, the Let’s Talk Science crew introduced butterfly origami to give attendees the opportunity to bring home a souvenir.
Attendees can bring in oranges from home so that the butterflies will land on them.
“Holding a piece of orange is a gentler way to handle the butterfly without harming it. This is unique to our show,” Bruggink said.
Jim des Rivières, a volunteer at the event, said he decided to get involved in providing photography for the show after he attended the event in 2000.
“These things will end up in their family albums,” he said, as he pointed to a child posing in front of a giant butterfly picture posted in the entrance of the Nesbitt Biology Building.
Sukey Omran, a fourth-year law student, said she wanted to attend the event before graduating but had never gone before now.
She said she loved the show and plans to visit again.
Bruggink said the family-oriented event takes place around Thanksgiving every year.
“It is also a gift from Carleton to the community,” Bruggink said. “We hope to plant a seed of respect for nature in young minds who have experienced the Biology Butterfly Show.”
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