Museum event
The Milwaukee Public Museum’s (MPM) recently reopened Puelicher Butterfly Wing, an indoor tropical garden housing hundreds of live butterflies” Bugs Alive!” exhibit. The wing, which reopened August 19 after nearly a year and a half of closure, celebrates its 21st year this year.
The nearby Wall of Diversity showcases more than 1,000 different colorful species of butterflies and moths. “Butterflies are among the most diverse insects on the planet,” says MPM Butterfly Wing supervisor Jon Bertolas.
The Butterfly Wing and “Bugs Alive!” exhibit offer plenty for all ages. Kids can crawl through nature-themed spaces in the exhibit’s Butterflies Alive! theater. A Wisconsin Butterflies display highlights the essential link between state butterflies and native plants, such as monarchs gravitating to milkweed.
The adjoining Bugs Alive! exhibit, which opened in 2003, invites visitors to take a fascinating look at scorpions, centipedes, giant black millepedes, walking sticks, crayfish and other creepy-crawlies and invertebrates. In the Arthropod Scent stations, visitors can press a button to smell odors emitted by insects such as citronella ants and earwigs. A greenhouse on the MPM roof grows plants such as mulberry leaves, which the staff feeds to walking sticks and other bugs in the exhibit. Insects are bred, fed and reared in a special room. Special precautions, like freezing organic waste, are taken to ensure insects stay contained.
Butterfly Farms
The butterfly garden, which operates with USDA guidelines and permits, is the only year-round exhibit of its kind in Wisconsin. Butterflies in the chrysalis stage of life are shipped from sustainable butterfly farms in countries with tropical climates, including Ecuador, the Philippines, and Costa Rica. “I like to think of this as a conservation effort,” Bertolas says.
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Chrysalises are then placed in a special “pupa room” with an incubator. Through a window, Butterfly Garden visitors can get an inside look as the butterflies-to-be emerge from their cozy homes.
Sixty to 70 species of vibrantly colored butterflies, from zebra longwing to blue morph, flit around the garden at any given time, sipping nectar from fruit and landing on special plants. The museum adds nearly 400 butterflies to the garden weekly.
The MPM has implemented strict COVID-19 safety guidelines, including increased sanitation procedures, limited capacity in exhibit areas, a new filtration system for the Butterfly Wing, mandatory face masks and social distancing. “Hopefully, this gives people an added sense of security,” Bertolas said.
The Milwaukee Public Museum is currently open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. For more information, visit the Milwaukee Public Museum website.
