“Butterfly wrangler” Kim Zsembik shows off a Blue Morpho butterfly perched on a popsicle stick before its release into the Butterflies Alive! exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
“Butterfly wrangler” Kim Zsembik shows off a Blue Morpho butterfly perched on a popsicle stick before its release into the Butterflies Alive! exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Credit: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History photo

Kim Zsembik’s title may be director of guest experience, but at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History she is called the “butterfly wrangler.”

For ten years, she’s worked at the popular summer exhibit Butterflies Alive!, first as an interpreter and now as exhibit manager. While prepping for the exhibit’s opening, she found time for a behind-the-scenes look at her activities.

Butterflies Alive! has been a summer mainstay since a temporary exhibit featuring California species opened in 2001. In 2022, their U.S. Department of Agriculture permit expanded to allow importation up to 150 foreign species.

This year will have 36, all from Costa Rica, with one exception – the Monarchs that flit through our region seasonally and overwinter in a grove in Goleta.

Blue Wave is a species from Costa Rica new this year in the Butterflies Alive! exhibit.
Blue Wave is a species from Costa Rica new this year in the Butterflies Alive! exhibit. Credit: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History photo

Zsembik grew up in Ventura County, graduated from UCLA, and was hired by the Museum in 2014 as one of the Butterflies Alive! interpreters who interact with guests. She became exhibit manager in 2018, the year a $20-million renovation made the pavilion a permanent feature. 

“My first experience with butterflies was here, 10 years ago,” she says. “But it is still exciting!”

Zsembik arranges for importing more than 6,000 chrysalides and oversees their “emergence” into butterflies, which are transferred to the outdoor pavilion. There, she leads a team that cares for the plants and butterflies, and even deals with the end-of-life of these glorious, but short-lived insects.

In the Butterfly Lab

The Butterfly Lab is not open to the public, but its “Emergence Chamber” filled with nearly 1,000 chrysalides can be viewed through a glass window in the Santa Barbara Gallery of the Museum. The lab is accessed first behind a locked door, then through a doorway sheeted with netting to prevent escapees.

Monarch chrysalides and freshly hatched butterflies in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s indoor Butterfly Lab.
Monarch chrysalides and freshly hatched butterflies in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s indoor Butterfly Lab. Credit: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History photo

Zsembik holds up a 6-inch-square cardboard box divided by paper strips into 30 compartments, where individual chrysalides are nestled in cotton when they arrive. Weekly shipments of several hundred leave Costa Rica on Mondays and are delivered on Thursday mornings.

“The large shipping boxes are stamped ‘Butterflies’ on the outside,” she says. “Our FedEx deliveryman gets so excited when they start arriving. He loves this time of year. We all do.”

Four species are new to Zsembik, including Band-celled Sister, resembling California’s Lorquin’s Admiral; Mexican Blue Wave, sporting vivid blue and black wing stripes; and Ruby-spotted Swallowtail, a velvety black with bright spots.

Blue Crackers, a new species in Butterflies Alive! this summer, get their name from the sound they make when defending their territory. They don’t eat nectar, like many butterflies, but feed on rotting fruit.
Blue Crackers, a new species in Butterflies Alive! this summer, get their name from the sound they make when defending their territory. They don’t eat nectar, like many butterflies, but feed on rotting fruit. Credit: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History photo

She especially looks forward to seeing – and hearing – Cracker butterflies, named for the sound they make when defending their territory. Fun fact: they don’t eat nectar, but feed on rotting fruit, sap, and animal dung.

“We try to have about a dozen different species in the Pavilion at one time, but 27 species are currently in the chamber, and will emerge at different times. New species arrive throughout the summer, depending on what our supplier has available,” she says.

In the wild, a chrysalis excretes a button of silk to secure it to a twig or branch, usually in a hidden location. In the Lab, Zsembik uses warm glue to attach one to a glass rod wrapped in netting. Organized by species, they hang one next to the other in vertical racks inside the chamber.

“We let them just hang out. They are wet when they emerge, and need time to dry off,” she says. “They let us know that they are ready to be moved by flying onto the glass or chamber floor.”

Transferring to the Pavilion

Zsembik opens the chamber and carefully positions a popsicle stick under a butterfly’s legs, encouraging it to latch on. “It doesn’t always work, and sometimes they fly right at me,” she says. Once secured, she places the butterflies into a repurposed mesh laundry basket which is zipped up for transfer.

Walking to the Pavilion, she meets Rebecca Coulter, the Museum’s volunteer coordinator, who squeals with delight. “Oh, look. They are so fresh!” she exclaims, and comes into the Pavilion to help with the release.

The lush garden with its curving pathway already has 300 flying residents.

Kim Zsembik uses a repurposed laundry basket to transport butterflies to the pavilion exhibit once they emerge from their chrysalides inside the Butterfly Lab.
Kim Zsembik uses a repurposed laundry basket to transport butterflies to the pavilion exhibit once they emerge from their chrysalides inside the Butterfly Lab. Credit: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History photo

Zsembik and Coulter add a rainbow display of more – Yellow Sulfurs, the color of creamy lemon chiffon; Doris Longwings, sporting blue, green, yellow, or red wing markings; Blue Wave, which lives up to its name; and Jazzy Leafwing, with wings of silvery iridescence. Owl butterflies, the largest butterfly species in the Americas, lumber into the air, dwarfing the other species.

“Butterflies Alive! is really two exhibits in one,” says Zsembik. “We hope they inspire curiosity from our guests, and questions not only about butterflies, but about ecology and the natural world.”

Owl butterflies, the largest butterfly in the Americas, dwarfs the other species in the Butterflies Alive! exhibit.
Owl butterflies, the largest butterfly in the Americas, dwarfs the other species in the Butterflies Alive! exhibit. Credit: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History photo

With that, Santa Barbara’s butterfly wrangler zips up the now empty basket and returns to the Lab.

The Butterflies Alive! experience is included in Museum admission. It is open May 25 through Sept. 2. Reservations are recommended and can be made at www.sbnature.org.

Volunteers are needed as weekend interpreters in the Pavilion. Contact Rebecca Coulter at rcoulter@sbnature2.org.