Science @ Home: Butterflies

Calling all caterpillars! Do you have what it takes to become a butterfly? Spread your wings for this interactive program that will help you master the skills needed to be successful as a monarch butterfly—including how to survive an epic 3,000-mile migration.

Academy docent Bev welcomes you to the bola—our 4-story rainforest exhibit—and introduces you to some of the hundreds of free-flying tropical butterflies and moths inside.

In this video, biologist Tim takes you on a tour of the rainforest’s butterfly emergence chamber, where butterflies hatch from their chrysalises and unfurl their wings for the very first time. 

While you watch this video, think about the four questions below. Share your answers with a friend or family member or just think in your head.

• What do you think Tim, the biologist in the video, means by emergence?
• Butterfly and moth pupae come in many different colors and sizes. Why do you think that is?
• Butterflies are important for the environment around them. What are some of the things they do for plants?
• How can you help protect rainforests?

Transform one piece of paper into two butterfly life stages in this cute, clever craft.

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Butterflies are easy targets for predators, which is why they’ve developed sneaky strategies like camouflage to help them blend in to their surroundings.

For butterflies, standing out from the crowd can be risky. By mimicking the colors of other icky-tasting butterflies, they can avoid becoming somebody’s lunch.

Print out and color this blue morpho butterfly. Notice the round patterns on its wings? Those are called eyespots, and they are used to trick predators into thinking they’re being watched.

Tired of Zoom calls? Zoom in on beautiful scientific specimens instead! Academy scientists used a high-tech camera called GIGAmacro to create incredible close-up photographs of insects, plants, and feathers, revealing all their teeny-tiny details.

Zoom in on the sunset moth and comet moth. What details do you notice? Use your observation skills to make some sketches and share with a friend or family member, or just admire them yourself.

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View comet moth

Sometimes nature just makes you want to sing. For Academy educator Kyle, that often means opera! Enjoy this theatrical celebration of an unusually musical monarch butterfly.

In these three activities, you’ll master the anatomy of an insec—and then activate your imagination to invent one of your own!

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Wait, how many legs do insects have? Even though caterpillars have more than six legs, when they metamorphose into their adult stage as butterflies, a lot about their bodies change—including their number of legs! Spot the differences in a butterfly’s stages of life in this craft.

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The blue morpho butterfly is like a flying, sparkling sapphire. Watch this short video for a glimpse of this exquisite insect.

While you watch this video, think about the three questions below. Share your answers with a friend or family member or just think in your head.

• What do you notice about the butterfly in this video?
• Have you ever seen a blue morpho butterfly before? If you have, what do you know about the bottom part of its wings? Are they blue too?
• Do you have any idea what the green things are?

Academy docent Annie lights up the screen as she explains the science behind the sparkle of butterflies like the blue morpho.

This recipe’s pretty cool: Add food coloring and salt to ice cubes for a colorful demonstration of how iridescence works.

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With a few household ingredients, you can make an iridescent rainbow materialize before your very eyes. Be sure to ask an adult for assistance.

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Many of the butterflies you see at the Academy start their lives in Costa Rica. Learn about how the Academy’s relationship with a sustainable butterfly producer in Costa Rica benefits nearby communities as well as native plants.

While you watch this video, think about the three questions below. Share your answers with a friend or family member or just think in your head.

• Where does the butterfly journey start?
• Have you ever thought of butterflies being raised in farms? What else is raised or grown in farms?
• Find a paper and pencil and sketch your favorite butterfly.

Please note: This video is in Spanish with English subtitles.

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How do monarch butterflies manage to migrate to the same exact spot in Mexico, year after year? Turns out, the answer is in their antennae.

While you watch this video, think about the two questions below. Share your answers with a friend or family member or just think in your head.

• Imagine what it would be like to migrate from the United States to Mexico and back every year. Do you think it would be a difficult journey?
• What might be some of the challenges that butterflies face?

Please note: This video is in Spanish with English subtitles.

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Academy researcher Durrell Kapan dug into butterfly DNA to unlock the secrets of butterfly mimicry.

While you watch this video, think about the two questions below. Share your answers with a friend or family member or just think in your head.

• Why would it be helpful for two different types of butterflies to mimic, or look like, each other?
• Can you think of any other animals that use mimicry to hide or avoid predators?

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