R2, an approximately 17-year-old tarantula, seems happy in her new home.
The big spider has taken up residence at the new Butterfly House and Insectarium near the Missoula County Fairgrounds. Visitors can meet R2 and numerous other critters at the new facility opening Dec. 6.
“She is the sweetest tarantula I’ve ever met,” said Glenn Marangelo, development director for the Butterfly House and Insectarium. “She could easily deliver a bite if she wanted to. But she’s always been just incredibly mellow. She’s a good ambassador.”
Marangelo, too, has acted as an ambassador for insect education over multiple decades. He and his wife, Jen, launched the Butterfly House and Insectarium idea after visiting a similar facility in Seattle in 2003. For a few years between 2015 and 2019, they operated an insectarium downtown, but since the closure of that location they’ve endeavored to create something bigger, better and buggier.
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The upcoming grand opening of the Butterfly House and Insectarium will bring that vision to many Missoulians. What separates Missoula’s Butterfly House from similar operations in other communities is the focus not only on butterflies, but rather on a diversity of other creatures as well.
Marangelo considers butterflies the “gateway bug” into the world of insect education and conservation. Along with around 25 species of butterflies that flutter in the sunny, humid space filled with plants and fresh-cut fruit, Marangelo’s facility features crustaceans, arachnids, beetles and a diversity of other insects.
“Butterflies are awesome and I love them,” Marangelo said. “But other insects have really cool stories about their lives. And we are in trouble without them.”
Insects, including butterflies, are important for pollination, soil decomposition and plenty of other environmental benefits. Marangelo and his team want to help visitors understand those impacts from bugs — and hopefully convert a few guests into fellow “bug geeks.”
The method, for the Marangelos, comes from themed sections of the Insectarium that deal with different species, locations and ways of interacting. There’s a listening area where guests can hear the diverse sounds different bugs make; there’s also large, handicapped-accessible microscopes attached to screens that broadcast close-up images of the intricacies of bug bodies. And in the encounter area, the daring can touch and hold friendly bugs like R2 the tarantula.
In one corner, as well, there’s an entire space dedicated to “Bugs under the Big Sky” — native Montana species. There, bug enthusiasts can learn the difference between three commonly misunderstood spider species: Western black widows, brown recluses and Hobo spiders.
Marangelo explained only black widows are a species of medical concern in the Treasure State. Brown recluses aren’t found here, and Hobos are “really nothing to worry about.”
Even black widows, he added, usually act docile and only attack a person if they are severely agitated. They’re a species, according to Marangelo, “to be wary of but they’re not out to get us.”
In addition to the many exhibits already in place, Marangelo has plans to continue adding to the museum. Leafcutter ants are expected to join Marangelo’s crew in spring 2024, and a bee’s nest will also go into place outside the Insectarium’s window, giving future guests more to anticipate.
And of course, no visit is complete without a trip through the double-security doors of the Butterfly House, where some 300 butterflies flap colorful wings and rest on blooming plants.
In the Butterfly House, there’s the owl butterfly, whose wings resemble both the all-seeing eyes of the nocturnal birds but also, from another angle, the head of a snake. There are also swallowtail butterflies, which flit and dive effortlessly through the plants assembled for their diversion. And the flashiest of all are the blue morphos, which look like owl butterflies when they’re resting but display an iridescent blue complexion when they spread their wings.
The butterflies are most active when it’s sunny out; late morning and the end of the day are some of their busiest times.
Guests also get a chance to see them emerge from their chrysalis in one section of the Butterfly House, and the hatching process loosely resembles the unveiling of the entire facility itself.
“Sometimes, they don’t always emerge perfectly,” said Marangelo. “It’s just part of the process.”