The Butterfly Lady

Wings of Wonder, Cypress Gardens
Sydney Krissoff, Curator

Butterflies--Nature's Art in Motion
Part 2

by Martha Hollis and Anthony Scaggs

Maintaining an ecosystem that encourages butterflies in a rainbow of colors to flutter at different ethereal levels, seeking specific plants, sunlight, or shade while at the same time creating acrobatic shows for their guests' total wonder becomes a major logistical operation. Sydney's challenge is to keep a mix of butterflies in the conservatory. Some of the butterflies we observed were the blue Morpho from Costa Rica, the Florida zebra long wing, several helicons that are very colorful and fly low to the ground.

The rainbow of colors comes from pigments in the butterflies scales or refraction. Butterflies are the only insects to have scales which contain the yellow, black, and white pigments. The more subtle blues, greens, and metallic and iridescent hues are created mostly by light refraction.

Imagine being the director and working with a cast whose stars only perform for one day to 14 days.. To make it more interesting, the stars arrive before becoming adults. They must arrive in the pupae stage (Life Cycle: egg, caterpillar or larva, pupa or chrysalis, and adult butterfly). To ensure the survival of the eggs or pupae, they must be ordered at the precise time. They travel from all corners of the world and are subject to the erratic nature of transportation as well as Custom's review. Plus time is needed in Sydney's laboratory for inspection before transferring to the two pupae cases where they develop into adult butterflies.

"What's the difference between a male and female butterfly?" joked Sydney while we were standing in front of the pupae case where the adult butterflies emerge from the cocoon and fly out into the conservatory garden. Then she unlocked the glass case and carefully picked up a butterfly holding the wings together just above the body gently between her index and middle fingers. She then demonstrated the differences in the butterfly anatomy and finished her joke. "The females fly out while the males stay on the glass. They do not want to ask for directions."