Outdoor living habitat features increased flight space and better viewing opportunities for 25 species of free-flying butterflies
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLA) has re-designed and re-built its popular outdoor Butterfly Pavilion exhibit, which opens to the public March 19, coinciding with the Museum’s third annual L.A. Nature Fest. Though it is still located on the south side of the Museum, the new and permanent structure has enhanced design features for its hundreds of butterfly residents: more vertical fly space, and a rounded structure that provides more light (which is better for flight) and more space for them to perch.
In the airy and roomier pavilion, museum visitors will delight in the 25 species of butterflies flitting around in their new digs. Museum entomologists have stocked the pavilion with North American butterflies, which flutter among flowering plants inside the enclosed habitat. Visitors may stop to admire a chrysalis and marvel as colorful winged creatures alight on nectar-filled flowers. They will spot monarchs, buckeyes, malachites, and zebra longwings, among others.
In the Nature Gardens
There’s also plenty of butterfly activity outside the Pavilion. In the 3½-acre Nature Gardens, the immersion into all-things-butterfly continues. This outdoor botanical showroom features 600-plus species of native and nonnative plants that grow well in Southern California’s Mediterranean climate. The Nature Gardens’ Pollinator Garden, in particular, is a butterfly magnet. The garden attracts some species that won’t be inside the Pavilion, because they breed well in unrestricted, outdoor spaces: the fiery skipper, Hylephila phyleus, which lays its eggs on grasses, and the gray hairstreak, Strymon melinus, which lays its eggs on native buckwheats. Museum visitors will also see a host of butterflies getting a dose of the sugary nectar of lilac verbena and California aster. They may spot the cloudless sulphur, too, which lays eggs on the flower tips of the feathery cassia plants. Whether outside in the gardens or in the new Pavilion, visitors are certain to see a bevy of showstoppers in flight.
NHMLA Butterfly Pavilion Ticketing Information
Museum Members and children age 2 and under are admitted to Butterfly Pavilion for free.
Prices for general admission plus the Pavilion are as follows: Adults, $17; College students and seniors, $14; Children ages (3-12), $10. Regular Museum admission is: Adults, $12; Students and Seniors, $9; Children (3-12), $5. Museum Members and children age 2 and under are admitted for free. Because of the Pavilion’s popularity, we highly recommend purchasing tickets in advance at nhm.org.
About the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County serves over one million families and visitors annually, and is a national leader in research, exhibitions, and education. It has amassed one of the world’s most extensive and valuable collections of natural and cultural history, with more than 35 million objects, some as old as 4.5 billion years. The Natural History Family of Museums includes the NHMLA (Exposition Park), the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum (Hancock Park/Mid-Wilshire), and the William S. Hart Museum (Newhall, California). NHMLA is at 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90007 and is open seven days a week 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, visit the Museum’s website at www.nhm.org or call (213) 763-DINO.
