Wings

A few weeks ago, my daughter and I visited the Pavilion of Wings, a live butterfly exhibit that comes to the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum every summer. Located on the South Lawn, between the museum and the Coliseum, it’s a steel-frame structure covered in a fine mesh. Inside the classroom-size main exhibit space is a miniature Eden, a pretty garden full of shrubs and flowers and butterflies – hundreds of butterflies, flitting about and flying free. This is a place of warmth and light and bright color and sudden, delicate motion.

We chatted with a curator, who explained the butterfly’s life cycle to my daughter and me. Life begins as an egg. Inside is an embryonic larva. The larva eats its way out and emerges as a caterpillar. The caterpillar’s main job is to eat…and eat…and eat. Plant material is the sole fare, and, often, it must be a particular plant, one matched to a given butterfly species, or the larva will die.

Next comes the chrysalis stage – the caterpillar spins an attachment of silk to anchor itself to a twig or leaf, then sheds its skin and transforms itself into a chrysalis or pupa. Pupae come in a great variety of shapes and sizes. The Pavilion has a collection on display and the curator pointed several out to us. Pupae of the Julia butterfly, a pretty orange species, resemble bird droppings. Mourning Cloak butterflies, large and dark as adults, resemble bits of pink coral as pupae. Most impressive are Monarch pupae, which look like jeweled jade eggs.

A winged creature rapidly takes shape within the pupa. When the time comes, the pupa cracks open, and the butterfly emerges. When its wings become strong enough, it flies off in search of food and a mate. At this stage in life, the nectar of flowers is the main source of sustenance.

For most butterfly species, life is short, if sweet – just two or three weeks as an adult butterfly is common.

Our lesson ended on a disturbing note. Butterflies are disappearing at increasing rates from American backyards, the curator told us. Culprits include pesticides, excessive weeding, and the replacement of native plants with exotic ones. The threat is particularly stark with respect to butterflies in the larval or caterpillar stage -- many are unable to consume or digest the exotic plants which have come to dominate urban gardens. As a result, butterflies are increasingly rare in large American cities.

The curator’s observation came back to haunt me later. When I was a boy, butterflies were common in our mid-Wilshire Los Angeles neighborhood. In the summer, swallowtails, monarchs and white cabbage butterflies were frequent visitors to our flowerbeds. Though I now live little more than a mile from where I grew up, I never see them anymore. I have spent more time out of doors lately, very deliberately, looking, so far without any luck.