Aiming for winged victory

Brent Karner likes to think of butterflies as a lure, a way to capture the public imagination.

If he can use swallowtails and mourning cloaks to draw people into his net-walled pavilion, he says, maybe he can pique their interest in less lovable insects. Grasshoppers, perhaps. Even termites.

One might call it a case of entomological bait and switch.

“They’re the one group of bugs that people really like,” Karner said of butterflies. “They speak for the cockroaches.”

Karner, better known as the “Bug Guy,” oversees entomology exhibits at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. So on Saturday, he watched and waited spider-like at the center of his web, formally called the Pavilion of Wings.

The pavilion, one of the museum’s most popular exhibits, opens today to the public for its ninth season. The museum website, www.nhm.org, describes the exhibit, which runs through Sept. 3. Museum members previewed the show Friday and Saturday, some returning for the fifth year.

In a blur of jewel-like hues, hundreds of butterflies and moths flew freely inside a hall akin to an open-air greenhouse. Sunlight glinted on the wings of orange-and-black monarchs, butterscotch-toned Julia longwings and saffron and purple California dogfaces.

Butterflies flitted in every direction, and so did children, chasing their quarry and poking fingers close to filmy wings.

It all resembled a fantastical garden party, with girls in frilly dresses and pastel sashes, boys in suit coats or bug T-shirts, darting along the paths with parents in pursuit.

Karner seemed relaxed as he sat on a bench, but he was watching closely.

When one boy crouched and picked a Santa Barbara daisy, he shot forward in his seat.

“Please, don’t pick the flowers,” he implored politely. “The butterflies need them.”

The boy dropped the daisy and scurried away.

For Karner, 36, every interaction is a chance to educate children and adults about insects, the cycle of life and the larger natural world. A native of Alberta, Canada, he studied entomology, worked in a museum “bug room” and helped launch an enclosed glass tropical butterfly house at the University of Alberta.

Karner -- no relation to a species called the Karner blue butterfly -- came to Los Angeles seven years ago as the museum’s insect zoo coordinator. The butterfly exhibit had opened in 1999 as a one-year temporary exhibit, but its popularity earned it a second year. Karner remodeled the pavilion with a profusion of colorful butterflies and plants, and the crowds grew. The exhibit has turned into an annual event.

In museum circles, butterflies have become a small version of what biologists call “charismatic megafauna,” creatures such as polar bears, giant pandas and sea otters that catch the public fancy much more strongly than, say, a rat.

Open-air butterfly displays have flourished worldwide since butterfly “zoos” caught on in Britain in the 1970s.

This is a dynamic exhibit, unlike the long, staid halls inside the museum that feature stuffed buffalo and elephants behind glass. On Saturday, for instance, a mourning cloak perched on a visitor’s shoulder for five minutes. A museum guide held two dead butterflies in her hand so children and adults could stroke their wings.

The pavilion will need to be replaced in the next few years. Karner would like to see it situated prominently on the museum’s north lawn. He also hopes to create a pavilion for another charismatic insect, the dragonfly.

He has already found a wintertime use for the pavilion. As butterflies begin to die off, the spiders move in. The Spider Pavilion, launched in 2005, is said to be the first arachnid habitat of its kind in the nation. “It hits on that other part of people’s psyche. Now people come in for the shock value,” Karner said.

The visitors also might see lingering butterflies become entangled in spider webs. “They’re pretty,” Karner said. “They’re also a very important part of the food chain.”

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deborah.schoch@latimes.com