Building Butterfly Boxes
There are tons of fun crafts you can do to decorate your new house. One of my personal favorites is the butterfly box. It’s colorful, unique, and it brings a little bit of nature into your home. I started collecting after I had to do an insect identification project in the fourth grade, and I haven’t ever stopped. I’ve bought my fair share of exotics from different shops around the world, but I also love to collect and preserve specimens from closer to home. I know some people might object to taking butterflies from their habitat, but if you do so in a respectful, informed manner, you can take your specimens without causing harm.
Catching the Butterfly
Obviously, the first thing you’ll need to do for your butterfly box is catch a butterfly. For this, you’ll need a butterfly net. This is a typically a net with a long handle to help you catch your specimen without having to approach too closely. It should also have light-colored, lightweight mesh to camouflage against the sky and protect your butterfly’s fragile wings once it’s inside the net. There are a lot of brightly colored butterfly nets for kids, but butterflies can see color, so if you buy a bright net that contrasts against the grass and sky, like orange or yellow, it will scare your butterflies off before you can catch them. I recommend this net if you’re looking to keep it cheap. It offers a sufficiently long handle, a wide enough ring, and it’s a neutral color that’s not going to warn your butterflies you’re coming for them.
You’ll also need to know your species. This is very important for sustainability, since it allows you to avoid taking butterflies that are threatened, endangered, or experiencing recent population collapses. It’s best to avoid all species whose conservation status is anything other than “least concern” (LC). There are some rare instances where you can take a threatened specimen. For instance, I once pulled a butterfly out of the claws of a praying mantis. Its body was too damaged for it to survive, so I preserved it and mounted it without concern for the species (it was, incidentally, a LC individual anyway). In situations where the specimen is already critically injured or dead, but its wings are still intact, you don’t have to worry as much about species identification — but only in an instance like this is it even arguably ethical to take from a threatened species. Butterfliesandmoths.org and the North American Butterfly Association’s site are two excellent sources for helping you identify species, but I would suggest reading up on local butterflies in your area before you go hunting for specimens so that you have some idea of what you’re looking at in the field. Always make sure you know what you’re killing before you kill it. It should go without saying, but limit the number of individuals you take to no more than one or two, and never, ever take a healthy individual from a protected/endangered species.
Another thing to think about is the season. Lots of butterflies, with notable exceptions like the monarch, only fly for one summer. They go through metamorphosis in spring, breed and lay eggs in summer, and die in fall. So if you want to ensure that your specimen has had time to complete its lifecycle and pass on its genes, the best time to take them is towards the end of summer. A lot of specimens are also easier to capture at this time because they’re aged and getting ready to die, and thus a lot less able to escape. The only real disadvantage to hunting in the fall is that your specimens have already been through a whole summer of dodging birds and avoiding mantises, so it can be harder to find one whose wings aren’t beaten up.
Once you’re ready to go out, the best way to catch a butterfly is to wait until it’s either feeding or sunning itself. The butterfly is stationary and near/on the ground during both these activities. Furthermore, when it’s feeding, it’s often distracted, while if it’s sunning, it’s in a vulnerable state because its internal temperature is low, making it slower. If you see a butterfly that’s bouncing from leaf to leaf and zigzagging all over the place, it’s probably warm and not looking to feed. You want to wait until you see one gliding low to the ground, either landing in a flat, sunny patch to warm up or shopping around for a flower to drink from. Follow butterflies that exhibit this behavior until they land.
Depending on the species, you can find butterflies just about anywhere, but good places to look are forests, flower gardens, fields with lots of blooms, and blossoming trees. Keep in mind a lot of butterfly species tend to prefer native flowers rather than exotics. Another great place to look for butterflies is a cow/horse pasture. Lots of butterflies seek manure to get essential nutrients, and it’s not uncommon to find a pile of poop covered in butterflies.
To catch it, you want to give your butterfly a minute to develop a sense of security before you pounce. Let it drink or sun for a second before you go for it; the inertia will make it slower to get back in the air. Butterflies have stationary eyes, and they’re very near-sighted. This means that the best way to approach is slowly from behind, staying as far away from the butterfly as possible. Remember to wear colors that match the environment, like green or blue, which will make it harder for the butterfly to spot you. Once you go for it, be gentle! The point is to catch it without harming it, especially its wings. Once the butterfly is in the net, let it fly to the back and then twist or clamp your mesh to keep it both trapped inside and very still. It’s important to keep your specimen from struggling, since this can cause irreparable damage to its wings. The powdery scales on your butterfly’s wings are what give them their color. They flake off very easily and are irreplaceable, so it’s vital to prevent anything from touching them.
Hold your butterfly by the body, gently pressing its wings together without touching them, until you get it inside the container. The best container is one that is small enough to prevent your butterfly from moving without cramping its wings. You want to keep it as still and calm as possible, so an opaque container that will keep your butterfly’s environment dark is best. Butterflies are diurnal, so the darkness induces them to rest and remain stationary.
Preserving Your Butterfly
The next step is killing, preserving, and positioning your specimen. There are multiple ways to kill a butterfly, but I prefer a process that allows me to preserve all its parts, including the abdomen, head, and antenna. That means I like to kill using the poison-in-a-jar method. This is a super easy way to kill your specimen both humanely and without damaging it. Incidentally, it also kills whatever mites, chiggers, and other microscopic parasites might’ve hitched a free ride on your specimen. Sometimes these can consume your butterfly after it’s dead, so it’s important to eliminate them before mounting it.
To make your death-jar, you’ll need a wide-rimmed glass jar with an airtight lid, paper towels, nail polish remover, a small piece of plastic bag, and a flexible barrier like cardboard, cut to the same size as the bottom of your jar:
In my jar, I’m using a few layers of pretty rigid disposable plate paper. It really doesn’t matter what you use as long as it is flexible enough to get in and out of the jar and impermeable/tight enough to prevent the liquid from touching your specimen. If the acetone touches your butterfly, it will discolor and destroy its wings. You want to create an environment where the fumes fill the jar, but the liquid stays entirely separate. To do this:
1. Fold your paper towels and lay them in the bottom of the jar, then soak them with the nail polish remover. You don’t need much. One capful is more than enough.
2. Next, press the small piece of plastic down over the paper towels to form a liquid-proof barrier. You can also loosely wrap the paper towels as shown in the picture below, but don’t wrap them so tight that the fumes can’t get to the space above.
3. Place your cut-to-size barrier over the paper towels, making sure that it’s pressed tightly into the sides of the jar so it doesn’t move. You can poke a few holes in the barrier to aid the distribution of the fumes, but I’ve found that this isn’t necessary. If your fumes are permeating enough, you should be able to smell them.
NOTE: Don’t stick your face down in the jar to breath the fumes; you should be able to smell them just by holding the jar near your nose and breathing normally. Acetone is a flammable, toxic substance, so treat it with care.
4. Use a thin, rigid tool like a screwdriver or the handle of an old, trash toothbrush to press everything down to the bottom of the jar. The hard barrier should not be touching the wet paper towels, but everything should be aligned and layered on the bottom, like so:
After you make your jar, place your butterfly gently inside, seal the lid good and tight, put it in a dark, quiet closet, and wait. The butterfly will drift to sleep within minutes, but don’t be fooled, if you take it out of the jar as soon as it stops moving, it will regain consciousness. You need to wait four to six hours to make sure that not only your butterfly, but everything on it, is good and dead. Look at it every once in a while to make sure that the liquid is not soaking through to the butterfly, but don’t otherwise touch it and don’t open the jar. Also, be aware that if you’re killing a moth, you need to leave it in the jar for ten or twelve hours. Moths are bigger and tougher than butterflies, and it takes a lot more to kill them.
Once your specimen is dead, gently remove it from the container by tilting the jar and letting the butterfly fall out slowly onto something that won’t take the scales off its wings, like a paper plate (not Styrofoam) or piece of cardboard. You may have to hold your cardboard and paper towels in place inside your jar so they don’t fall on your butterfly.
Once your specimen is out, it will be soft and flexible. You will need to immediately place it into your desired position so it can dry. Once it is rigid, you cannot move its wings without breaking them unless you soften it again with a humidifying jar. You can avoid all that by positioning it immediately. There are butterfly spreaders made for this purpose, but I’ve never found them necessary. To get the butterfly flat:
1. Lie it on its belly and position its wings as wide and as far apart as possible, using your fingers to touch only the edges (if the wings are closed tight, spread them carefully, then lie the butterfly on its back to keep them open):
2. Next, lie something heavy enough to flatten your specimen, but light enough not to hurt it, over the body. You want it to dry spread-eagle so you can display as much of the colorful wings as possible. In the instance below, I am using the lid from the poison jar to flatten this gulf fritillary:
3. Leave your butterfly for several hours; overnight is best. Once your specimen is dry, it will stay in position without any help:
Boxing Your Butterfly
Once your butterfly is rigid in position, it’s time to box it. For this, you’ll need a shadowbox big enough to accommodate your size and number of specimens, scissors, a glue stick, super glue, and a background. Most people use a plain background, but I like to take and print pictures of flowers, grass, the sky, etc. to make my boxes feel more lifelike:
To mount your butterfly:
- Print your background photo to the size of your box. Today, I’m mounting a two-tailed swallowtail alone in a 4x6 shadowbox, so I printed a 4x6 postcard and cut it to size:
2. Next, use the glue stick to fasten your background to the back of the frame. Make sure your picture is right-side-up in comparison to the hooks and/or stand on the frame back. The glue stick isn’t usually enough to hold the weight of the butterfly alone, so after you press the background photo to the frame back, use some clear tape to secure the edges. Make sure you only place the tape on the outer edge of the photo so it won’t be visible in the background, as shown below:
3. Once your background is placed, you can mount your butterfly. Before you glue it to the background, you should carefully pop off the legs so they don’t get in between the glue and the specimen’s body, like so:
4. Next, use a highly adhesive, fast-setting gel glue (I prefer Superglue gel) to adhere your butterfly’s thorax to the background. Again, double check to make sure it’s right-side-up in comparison to the hooks on the back. Once your specimen is adhered, there’s nothing you can do to remove it without breaking it.
5. Now, place your butterfly in the desired position and gently press down on its thorax to stick it to the background. Hold it firmly for as long as the instructions on the glue bottle say to, usually 20 or 30 seconds. Give your glue a few hours to set before continuing to the next step.
6. Once your glue has bonded firmly, you’re ready to close the shadowbox. Make sure to clean the outside and inside of the glass with a little Windex and let it dry before you close your box. Once you’re sure the inside of your glass has no fingerprints or dust, place the frame over the background and seal the box.
Once you close up your box, you’re ready to display it however you like. If you’re going to hang it on drywall, it shouldn’t be so heavy that you need a stud, but using a drywall anchor is always a good idea. As you can see, these boxes can make beautiful additions to your home:
Caring for Your Butterflies
Though fragile, these shadowboxes are relatively low-maintenance and can last many years if properly cared for, but there are a couple of issues you should be aware of. One such issue is sunlight. It is very important for you to display your butterflies in an area where they will never, ever be under direct sunlight. Radiation from the sun will fade their wings and can even cause them to fall apart.
Another thing to watch out for are anthrenus verbasci and other scavengers. A. verbasci (carpet/museum beetles) larvae eat dried organic material such as pelts, natural carpets, and preserved insects. Hanging your butterflies on the wall will help, but it won’t entirely protect your specimens from these pests. You can easily contract them by setting your specimens on a carpeted floor, like when you’re moving to a new house. It’s important to take steps to avoid them, like keeping your specimens off the floor at all times and even sealing the back of your frames with packing tape.
If you do wind up with an infestation, you’ll start to see your butterflies’ bodies and wings progressively disintegrating for no apparent reason. You’ll also see clear signs of infestation, like the tiny exoskeletons of the beetles themselves. You can get rid of them by placing mothballs inside your shadowboxes and then putting the shadowboxes in an airtight container with more mothballs for at least a month. This will poison the beetles, as well as killing whatever eggs they’ve laid. This is not a common problem; I’ve been collecting for over two decades, and I’ve only had to deal with it once, but it’s important to take care of it as soon as you notice it. If you don’t, the infestation will spread quickly and ultimately destroy your collection. See the photos below for an example of what an infestation looks like:
