Field Museum

Public Discovery

Every specimen
tells a story.

Explore real insects and plants from the Field Museum's published collections, and ask the questions you've always wondered about.

Presenter toggle: ask as a visitor or as a researcher
A blue morpho butterfly

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Curious about the natural world?

For visitors

Answers draw only on published records

Why are butterflies important to ecosystems?

Butterflies carry pollen from flower to flower as they sip nectar, helping many plants make seeds.

Their caterpillars are food for birds, lizards and other animals, so they are an important link in food webs.

Many butterflies depend on particular plants and climates, so changes in their numbers can be an early sign that an environment is changing.

What we're less sure about

How much butterflies contribute to pollination compared with bees differs from place to place, and scientists are still measuring it.

Map butterfly collecting

How we protect sensitive locations

Some species are threatened by illegal collecting. Public answers generalize their locations.

Visitor sees

Veitch's masdevallia

Cusco, Peru

Researcher sees

Switch to the Researcher view to see the precise locality.