SALT RIVER PIMA-MARICOPA INDIAN COMM. — Take a trip to a magical rainforest without leaving the Valley this holiday season…. Butterfly Wonderland presents “Glistening Gardens.”
“One of the things we really tried to do here is we really tried to blend in something that is both biologically functional, as well as aesthetically beautiful,” said Derek Kellogg, Director Of Animal Care at Butterfly Wonderland, in an interview with ABC15. “There's at any point in time, somewhere between three- to four thousand butterflies in here.”
Glistening Gardens combines the beauty of shimmering lights and majestic butterflies in this holiday experience.
“We try to encourage a lot of different ways of appreciating beauty here, whether it be the different colored lights, the trees wrapped in lights, the flowers, and leaves,” said Kellogg. “Some of these leaves are actually four to five feet long. So, there's some really outstanding plants that are in here, as well as the large variety of butterflies that you can see in here."
With thousands of butterflies and lights at this holiday experience inside the conservatory, there’s more than just holiday magic. There’s also an opportunity to learn about nature.
“One of the things I really hope that they take away when they come visit here is the beauty of the natural world, especially when it's [things about] like tropical rainforests because they're in areas that are far away from here. They're hard for people to really form that connection to and so having something where a tropical rainforest environment is here, it's beautiful to look at and it's something that's very stimulating and engaging. It’s [an important] part of demonstrating why these ecosystems are important to us,” said Kellogg.
IF YOU GO
- Where: Butterfly Wonderland [9500 E. Via de Ventura]
- Event runs from November 24 – January 7, 2024.
WHAT YOU’LL SEE
According to Kellogg, Butterfly Wonderland has somewhere between 50 to 75 different species of butterflies at any point in time, but will get “somewhere close to around 200 different species through the course of the year.”
Here’s a closer look at a Blue Morpho Butterfly.
“Mind you, I've handled somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of butterflies. So please don't try this on your own. But I'm going to try and do this without injuring it,” said Kellogg as he carefully got the butterfly to show the insect’s wings.
“That blue color isn't [necessarily] the color of the scale, but the way in which the scale interacts with light. So, the microscopic structure on the scales, what it actually does is it breaks apart light and reflects back blue light. So, if we were to take something and say, say a liquid with really low surface tension, and just wash it over the swing, that blue color would go away, because liquid would be interfering with the light pattern. And what it would look like instead would just be this brown color, kind of like on the outside,” explained Kellogg.
KEEP THIS IN MIND
“The best way to relate to butterflies when they come here is going to be one that is kind of respectful of the butterflies. So, we do ask that people not try to grab the butterflies because the wings of butterflies can be very delicate. And once those wings are damaged, they can't really regrow that so that damage is permanent for the butterfly,” explained Derek Kellogg, Director Of Animal Care at Butterfly Wonderland. “What we do I see a lot of people do - and is perfectly fine - is sometimes they'll put their hand in front to see whether or not the butterfly will climb up, and that's perfectly fine. That's something that if the butterfly doesn't want to climb up, it will just fly away. A lot of times what you tend to find is, especially earlier in the day, in the morning and early afternoon, if you're in a sunny spot, and you're holding still enough, the butterflies will actually come and land on, you know, anything else required. That's just how the butterflies behave.”
