Butterfly Biosphere
Experience butterflies and more at Thanksgiving Point Butterfly Biosphere At Lehi’s Thanksgiving Point, a new experience awaits visitors: instead of watching through a glass window, they enter the space and observe in person the 1,000 colorful creatures flying around them. Welcome to the Butterfly Biosphere, a 40,000-squarefoot venue that opened in January. It includes a nearly 10,000-square-foot glasshouse where butterflies from around the world fly freely among dozens of tropical flowering plant species. “It is a massive, enclosed, free-flight butterfly experience,” said Zak Gezon, chief entomologist and containment director at the Butterfly Biosphere. “There are no cages. You are inside of the habitat with the butterflies.” Its size makes it one of the largest butterfly conservatories in the world. On any given day, between 50 and 60 species of butterflies are winging around the facility, although more than 100 species have been released into the conservatory since its opening. “The showstopper is always the blue morpho,” Gezon
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said. This bright iridescent blue butterfly measures about 4 inches across and is found in Central and South America. These butterflies tend to fly in a group, creating a spectacular sight. “You’ll literally get a huge cloud of iridescent blue butterflies flying around each other. It’s magical,” Gezon said. Other species include owl butterflies, which have large markings on their wings that look like eyes; the Halloween butterfly, which has black and orange stripes; and swallow-tailed butterflies with longs tails on the tips of their wings. All the butterflies are brought in from tropical locations around the world, with one exception. The only Utah species released in the conservatory is the Monarch butterfly, and it only appears seasonally. These butterflies are obtained through a local source and specifically bred for the conservatory to avoid disrupting natural population numbers or migration patterns. Gezon said more than 75 percent of the biosphere butterflies are purchased from a nonprofit organization in Costa Rica, with the profits going toward habitat restoration and other conservation efforts. One of the most fascinating aspects of the conservatory is the area where visitors can watch butterflies emerge from their chrysalises. About 150 emerge every day. Although butterflies are what attract the crowds, they’re not the only animals to see and learn about at the Butterfly Biosphere. In the Discovery Zone area, 60