The mission of the California Academy of Sciences is to explore, explain, and sustain life.

Calling all caterpillars! Do you have what it takes to become a butterfly?

Transform one piece of paper into two butterfly life stages in this cute, clever craft.

Print out and color this blue morpho butterfly.

For butterflies, standing out from the crowd can be risky. By mimicking the colors of other icky-tasting butterflies, they can avoid becoming somebody’s lunch.

Zoom in close to see the tiny scales on its wings; their shape is what gives the moth its radiant hues.

Butterflies are easy targets for predators, which is why they’ve developed sneaky strategies like camouflage to help them blend in to their surroundings.

Academy docent Bev welcomes you to the bola—our 4-story rainforest exhibit—and introduces you to some of the hundreds of free-flying tropical butterflies and moths inside.

Academy scientists used a high-tech camera called GIGAmacro to create incredible close-up photographs of i

In this video, biologist Tim takes you on a tour of the rainforest’s butterfly emergence chamber, where butterflies hatch from their chrysalises and unfurl their wings for the very first time. 

How do monarch butterflies manage to migrate to the same exact spot in Mexico, year after year? Turns out, the answer is in their antennae.

Academy researcher Durrell Kapan dug into butterfly DNA to unlock the secrets of butterfly mimicry.

The blue morpho butterfly is like a flying, sparkling sapphire. Watch this short video for a glimpse of this exquisite insect.

Academy docent Annie lights up the screen as she explains the science behind the sparkle of butterflies like the blue morpho.

This recipe’s pretty cool: Add food coloring and salt to ice cubes for a colorful demonstration of how iridescence works.

Sometimes nature just makes you want to sing. For Academy educator Kyle, that often means opera! Enjoy this theatrical celebration of an unusually musical monarch butterfly.

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In these three activities, you’ll master the anatomy of an insec—and then activate your imagination to invent one of your own!

Learn about how the Academy’s relationship with a sustainable butterfly producer in Costa Rica benefits nearby communities as well as native plants.

With a few household ingredients, you can make an iridescent rainbow materialize before your very eyes. Be sure to ask an adult for assistance.