Schmetterlingspark Fehmarn (tropical butterfly hall)

The butterfly park on Fehmarn is a recent creation. According to Reisecenter Fehmarn, a local tourism agency, it opened in 2013 at the entrance to Burg auf Fehmarn, the main town of the Baltic island. It is run by a limited company, Schmetterlingspark Fehmarn GmbH, and describes itself as the island's 'tropical zoo'. The island's tourism service calls it the third-largest butterfly park in Germany, without saying what the ranking rests on.

The hall is not an old monument but a leisure facility designed around the tourist season: the park closes on 1 November and reopens for the Easter holidays.

On a few figures: 1,000 m² for the official site and Reisecenter, 950 m² for two other island tourism sites; about thirty butterfly species in the title of one page and forty in its text, up to a hundred according to the tourism service. One operating detail is well documented, however: the butterflies arrive as pupae every week from Costa Rica and Malaysia.

The building is a single volume that the official site calls a 'Freiflug-Tropenhalle', a tropical free-flight hall, and puts at 1,000 m². Two tourism sources, Reisecenter Fehmarn and the magazine kurz-mal-weg.de, speak of a glass roof; Reisecenter adds that it lets the sunlight in and brings out the colours of the animals.

The entrance area is modern in design, with large photographs of butterflies on the walls. Inside the hall, Reisecenter gives a temperature of 25 to 28 °C and humidity of 70 to 80 %, with up to 30 °C according to a photo caption. A gallery with seating gives a view over the hall and its pond, planted with water lilies, where small fish and koi carp swim; benches line the route and small signs give information on the plants and animals. A café and a small shop complete the building.

The island's tourism service reports 600 to 1,000 butterflies in free flight, from species coming mainly from Malaysia and Costa Rica. Pupae arrive every week, about 250 animals per delivery according to Reisecenter, and the adults live one to four weeks. Among the most admired, the atlas moth (Atlasspinner in German) shows its colours for only about five days. A butterfly garden lets visitors follow development from egg to adult.

The Fehmarn Magazin describes tropical vegetation in which banana plants and orchids grow, and the pond carries water lilies. The hall also houses two green iguanas, twelve to fifteen zebra finches and a few Chinese dwarf quail, which eat the dead butterflies, along with tortoises, fish and birds.

The park stands at the entrance to Burg, on Mummendorfer Weg. According to the official site, Burg railway station is about 900 m away and the 'Amalienhof' bus stop about 200 m; parking is charged, the tourism service says. The season runs from the Easter holidays to the end of October, and the warmth of the hall also makes it a refuge on rainy days. Dogs on a short lead are welcome.

The café serves cakes made at a farm café on the island, in Albertsdorf. Less than 100 m away, according to OpenStreetMap, is the Galileo Wissenswelt museum of nature and technology; the Meereszentrum Fehmarn, a large aquarium, is also in Burg.