Belizean Butterflies
by Michael McDermott, reporter

    When Texans think of a farm or a ranch, cows are usually involved. Farms often include chickens or hogs and tracts of land converted to corn or wheat fields; ranches involve herds of animals—cattle, horses, even sheep.

    In Belize, ranchers raise butterflies.

    In fact, the Green Hills Butterfly Ranch and Botanical Collection provides the commercial sale of butterfly pupae, an industry that has grown surprisingly in the last few years. The pupa is the dormant stage of the insect's metamorphosis—or complete change—that one may find hanging from a tree or shrub as a chrysalis anywhere butterflies are found. The caterpillar emerges as a butterfly from the chrysalis when the pupa stage is complete.

    The pupae are purchased by zoos, botanical gardens and museums across the world, such as the Moody Gardens in Galveston, which contains a large year-round butterfly house. Collectors also make up a small share of the customer base, but all butterflies are shipped as live pupae. No butterflies are captured from the wild.

    The ranch must keep shipping to many of the permanent butterfly houses throughout the world because a butterfly's life span is relatively short. Most species live less than six weeks.

    The owners of Green Hills, Tineka Boomsma and Jan Meermon, originally from Holland, started the ranch in Belize in 1989. They worked through months of trial and error to determine the proper feeding and precise living conditions to raise each butterfly species.
Boomsma is an expert on dragonflies and damselflies of Belize. Some species were new to science as well as not having been recorded in Belize. Telebasis boomsmae, a bright orange damselfly, was named after her, an honor not received by many people.

    Dozens of local butterflies are being reared at Green Hills in the Cayo District of Belize among the impressive limestone hills covered in lush tropical vegetation. Scores of butterflies fly freely inside the ranch's enclosed flight area.

    The area also houses a great variety of native Belizean plants and flowers, most of which are either nectar plants for the butterflies or food plants for the caterpillars. The property contains a reference for collections of native plants from bromeliads and orchids to the National Passionflower Collection.

    The butterfly house provides the perfect opportunity to observe and photograph the beautiful insects. The brilliant blue morpho can be seen feeding on bowls of fruit pieces while the gorgeous orange Julia lands on the radiant firebush. The banana owl butterfly, the largest in Belize at about 5 inches across, will land only on a living banana tree rather than a freshly cut branch to lay its eggs.

    Butterfly eggs are collected from inside the flight area by clipping off the portion of the leaf containing the tiny eggs. They are then transferred to the rearing facilities. The eggs hatch as caterpillars, the lava stage, and are kept in clean butterdish-like containers and fed daily with their choice of food.

    After several days, the caterpillars are placed in a vertical box where they will crawl to the top and form the chrysalis from which the amazing transformed butterfly will emerge.

    People worldwide dedicate themselves to studying these fascinating creatures. Some are professional scientists; others are devoted amateurs. At Green Hills, both groups, as well as casual visitors, can marvel at the wondrous butterfly and its behavior.

    And because they are providing butterflies for people to enjoy in exhibits across the planet, one need only take a trip to the local zoo or museum to enjoy the wonderful butterflies of Belize.