Magic Wings Butterfly House (Museum of Life and Science)

The Museum of Life and Science began in 1946, when a group of volunteers created Durham's first trail-side nature centre, then known as "The Children's Museum" and housed on Lavender Street. In 1961 the museum secured a long-term lease from the city on 11.7 acres of woodland along Murray Avenue, where it then grew: a Prehistory Trail with eleven life-size models in 1967, the F. G. Hall Memorial Aerospace Pavilion in 1975 and the Ellerbe Creek Railway in 1977.

Magic Wings Butterfly House opened in 1999. At its opening it was one of the largest museum butterfly houses in the southeastern United States. In March 2000 the Bayer Insectarium, devoted to invertebrates, completed the facility.

On 25 September 2023 the museum announced a one-million-dollar grant from the State of North Carolina for renovating the butterfly house, a project costed at 1.5 million dollars in all, with the remaining 500,000 dollars to be raised separately. The planned work covered the roof, the replacement of the conservatory glass and the exterior siding, the first major updates since the 1999 opening. The museum also intended to revive the use of the space for events throughout the year.

Magic Wings is a glass conservatory rising over three levels to a height of about 10.7 metres (35 ft). It offers some 465 m² (5,000 sq ft) of planted space, through which visitors walk among free-flying butterflies. OpenStreetMap maps the building as a greenhouse at the heart of the museum grounds, close to the café and the wooded play area.

The glass volume is complemented by the Insectarium, completed in March 2000, which offers a close look at invertebrates from around the world. After more than twenty years in use, the structure became the subject of the renovation programme announced in 2023: roof repairs, replacement of the conservatory glazing and new exterior siding. The museum also planned to revive its use as a rental venue for events all year round.

The conservatory brings together more than 200 varieties of tropical plants, which form a rainforest setting across its three levels. Hundreds of tropical butterflies fly freely around the visitors, who can watch them at close range among the plantings.

The visit continues in the Insectarium, opened as the Bayer Insectarium, which presents a collection of rare and exotic insects and other invertebrates from around the world. Together the greenhouse and the Insectarium form a unit devoted to living invertebrates, which the museum complements outdoors with farm animal enclosures and a black bear habitat.

Magic Wings stands on the wooded Murray Avenue site in Durham that the museum has occupied since 1961. The tropical conservatory can be visited in any season and makes a welcome refuge on cold or rainy days.

A visit can be combined with the museum's other areas: the Dinosaur Trail with its life-size dinosaur models, the Ellerbe Creek Railway, the farmyard and the black bear habitat, or Hideaway Woods, a 2.5-acre natural space opened in 2015 with a treehouse village and access to the stream. It is worth checking on the progress of the renovation work before travelling.