Where Visitors Are All Aflutter

By Tracy Grant
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 29, 2008; Page WE48

The music is a meld of fortissimo "Eeeks" and "Oooh, look at that one" performed pianissimo.

The choreography is a naturalist's version of the hokeypokey, with little feet clomping as they jump backward excitedly followed by little hands reaching forward gingerly.

It's a symphonic ballet performed by three-foot-tall humans and three-inch-long insects.

The National Museum of Natural History's new butterfly pavilion, part of the "Butterflies + Plants: Partners in Evolution" exhibition hall, is a half-block-long, gently curved enclosure with a gauze-like covering. Its resemblance to a cocoon is as unmistakable as it is appropriate. After all, this is home to more than 30 species of butterflies with more than 400 flitting by -- or dive bombing as the case may be -- on any given day.

Thirty-five people are allowed in the pavilion at about 30-minute intervals. Before entering the tropical garden, visitors receive a cardboard field guide to help identify species as well as a warning: "Watch your feet; we don't want anyone squished," a museum guide advises with a chuckle, and everyone knows he's not talking about squishing humans.

Inside the pavilion, visitors discover why this is one of the hottest tickets in town. Kept at 80 quite-humid degrees, it feels more like tropical Costa Rica than Washington in February. But that's just one of the exhibition's many enticements.

"They are really, really pretty," says 6-year-old Josephine Stein of Rockville. "But I was really scared when one almost landed on my head like a plane." She uses her hand to show the swooping motion of some of the biggest inhabitants of the pavilion.

Bat-wing and bird-wing butterflies look as if their wings would be too delicate to heave their sturdy bodies into the air. But once they get going, they are among the most imposing residents, the ones most likely to prompt visitors -- and not just children -- to duck out of their flight paths.

While the butterflies are the stars of the show, the foliage serves as a spectacular supporting cast. Stocky bromeliads (with strategically placed pieces of cantaloupe, grapefruit and orange) act as restaurants for the butterflies. Delicate flowering bushes provide landing areas and pollination destinations for the residents and eye candy for the visitors.

The butterflies, which come from Asia, Africa and the Americas, range from tiny to enormous and from eye-poppingly gorgeous to downright ordinary.

"I saw one that I thought was a moth," says 3-year-old Joshua Stein, describing the cleverly camouflaged owl butterfly.

A stroll (stroller-free, please) in the tropics can take about 15 or 20 minutes, and before visitors leave, they are expected to do the hokeypokey one more time. This time to be sure that none of the pavilion's residents are clinging to humans, having decided that butterflies really should be free.

Soaring but Not Free: Smithsonian's Butterfly Habitat

By Marissa Newhall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; Page C01

Inside the milky white dome of the Smithsonian's new butterfly habitat, an Asian swallowtail alights on what looks like scouring-sponge netting, soaking in a tray of bluish liquid. It sips delicately from the fabric, surely imbibing some scientifically calibrated mix of nectars and nutrients.

"Blue Gatorade," clarifies Dan Babbitt, an entomologist at the National Museum of Natural History, who works on the exhibit. Much like humans, it turns out, butterflies need a balance of salt and sugar to achieve peak performance.

"Butterflies and Plants: Partners in Evolution," 18 months in the making, opens to the public tomorrow. The $3 million structure-within-a-structure is the only year-round, indoor butterfly pavilion in Washington, home to 300 to 400 of the flying insects at a time.

Inside, season-defying 80-degree warmth bathes marble walls and sleek stainless steel food dishes of sliced grapefruit. In one corner, a dazzling blue morpho lolls on a halved banana, luxuriating in the humidity -- maintained by sensors at 80 percent. Nearby, a trio of cream-and-black paper kite butterflies flutter briskly around a blinding overhead lamp. Sixteen 1,000-watt bulbs approximate "a bright, sunny summer day," Babbitt says. The lights gradually dawn to full brightness at 7:30 a.m. and slowly revert to darkness 12 hours later.

The luxe habitat is also controversial, being the first and only permanent Smithsonian exhibit in Washington to charge admission fees: $6 for adults, $5 for children ages 2 to 12, and $5.50 for senior citizens 60 and older. (Tuesdays are free.) Yesterday, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) introduced a bill that would bar the Smithsonian from charging an admission fee to any permanent exhibit, a direct response to the butterfly exhibit.

"The Smithsonian has long prided itself on 'free access,' " she said. "Fees are not the answer for American taxpayers, who already have paid through the 70 percent that the federal government contributes to this public institution."

The museum says the fees are necessary because butterflies live only two to four weeks. Replenishing the pavilion's supply requires new shipments of chrysalises twice a week, from as far as Africa, Malaysia, South and Central America, and eventually Australia. The exhibit's annual operating budget is $800,000 to $1 million.

The design, in concept and execution, is both whimsical and futuristic. From outside, the semi-transparent curved acrylic panels seem to glow, yet are held together by a utilitarian steel frame. Lining the walls outside the pavilion are signs telling the story of plants' and insects' intertwined evolution.

Exhibit developer Sally Love Connell says the pavilion's lush plant life was carefully chosen to make sure no host plants -- plants that provide a hospitable environment to any caterpillars that may hatch from eggs -- are introduced. To comply with USDA regulations, the Smithsonian curtails reproduction by the insects and removes any eggs that are laid on the plants.

Inside, the ebullient flora contrasts with a clinical glass-and-steel box, where new arrivals -- in chrysalis form -- spend a few days hanging from pins and small drops of carefully applied hot glue before emerging. Yesterday, visitors could observe only the still, green orbs; patrons will soon be able to see new butterflies wresting themselves free.

Free, of course, into captivity. After their wings dry, the paper-thin creatures are released into the humid chamber, their first and last winged destination.