Center Will Be Devoted to Nature’s ‘Flying Flowers’

As a child, Thomas C. Emmel developed a passion for chasing and catching the butterflies fluttering near his Los Angeles home. As a scientist, he trekked through tropical jungles and the Florida Keys searching for endangered species of butterflies.

After more than 39 years of studying one of nature’s most beautiful and colorful insects, Emmel, 62, is seeing his dream unfold at the University of Florida. The entomology and zoology professor is overseeing completion of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Environmental Research. He will serve as director. The center, scheduled to open in August, is expected to provide an important research and educational resource for researchers of the second-largest order of insects on earth.

For Emmel, butterflies are more than just science. “To most of us, as well as to poets, playwrights, novelists and artists, they represent an uplifting beauty and delicacy -- like ‘flying flowers’ -- that inspires us with the perfection of nature,” he said.

The $12-million center will feature a tropical jungle, storage space for millions of specimens, research space for 40 graduate students and visiting scientists, electron microscopes, DNA-testing facilities and even a huge freezer to keep insect collections from bringing in live bugs.

It will host the largest professional resident lepidopterology staff and student training program in the world. Even the largest museums and universities have only one or two lepidopterists, or butterfly and moth specialists, on staff, Emmel said.

One of the new research assistants, Gary Ross, decided to leave Louisiana State University when it would not finance a $750,000 butterfly research center. That made it easier for Emmel to lure Ross, 63, an award-winning entomology professor who owns a collection of about 20,000 butterflies, to Gainesville.

About 4.2 million specimens will be in the center, but Emmel said more than 300 private collections have been promised. Only the British Museum, with about 8.5 million specimens, will have a larger collection.

Other than their beauty, why should people care about 260,000 species of butterflies and moths? They pollinate plants. Some of their caterpillars cause about 95% of all plant-eating damage in tropical forests.

“Many species are sensitive indicator species to the health of the environment, being the first to die from misused pesticides or global warming,” Emmel said.

The center was financed with $7.2 million from the William W. McGuire and Nadine M. McGuire Foundation of Wayzata, Minn.; $4.2 million from the Florida Legislature and $1 million from the university.

William McGuire, UnitedHealth Group chief executive, has long had an interest in butterflies, and has had several named after him. The McGuires previously sponsored some of Emmel’s research, particularly his work to save the Schaus swallowtail, an endangered butterfly found in the Keys, and the Rockland skipper, another endangered butterfly found only on Big Pine Key.

Butterflies and moths have been the focus of extensive research for more than three decades at the University of Florida, and the center will allow researchers to conduct cutting-edge research, Emmel said.

For instance, researchers will use a soundproof room to study the sounds made by butterflies. The centerpiece of the new building is a 56-foot-high open-air tropical forest complete with waterfalls, 350 tons of rock, fog, rare tropical plants, lizards, birds and 2,000 butterflies.

The building is designed to withstand a hurricane with winds up to 130 mph, as well as earthquakes, floods and tornadoes, plus protect a collection that will include specimens of extinct butterflies and those on the verge of extinction.