Butterfly Biosphere at Thanksgiving Point (Beverley Taylor Sorenson Butterfly Conservatory)

Thanksgiving Point is a non-profit complex of gardens and museums founded in Lehi in 1995 by Karen Jackman Ashton and Alan C. Ashton, co-founder of WordPerfect. After Farm Country in 1996, the Museum of Ancient Life in 2000 and the Museum of Natural Curiosity in 2014, the institution announced a new venue devoted to the world of insects in September 2017. Ground was broken on Monday 11 September 2017 in the former Emporium, a retail building just north of the site's water tower, at a ceremony with a butterfly dance, insect-based foods and a live butterfly release, which Governor Gary Herbert was expected to attend. Thanksgiving Point's president, Mike L. Washburn, promised an experience unlike anything else in Utah, built in part on exhibit ideas submitted by local students. The building carries the name of the Barbara Barrington Jones Family Foundation, in memory of Hilda Ruth Harrell, and the conservatory that of Beverley Taylor Sorenson.

Announced for 2018, the Butterfly Biosphere opened in early 2019: the Salt Lake Tribune described it in operation on 25 January 2019, at a cost of $30 million, and Wikipedia presents it as Utah's first insectarium. To import non-native species, Thanksgiving Point had to obtain certification from the federal Department of Agriculture, intended to prevent any escape into the local ecosystem. On 14 February 2020, Thanksgiving Point's 25th anniversary, a leafcutter ant colony of nearly 65,000 insects became a permanent exhibit; the official site now puts the colony at around 120,000.

Rather than build anew, FFKR Architects converted an existing retail centre in Water Tower Plaza into a venue of 40,000 square feet according to the firm, or 33,000 according to the local press of 2017 and the Salt Lake Tribune of 2019. At its heart is a two-storey glass flight enclosure of 10,000 square feet, about 930 m², whose glazed walls are lined in winter with a thin net that keeps the butterflies off the cold glass, while roof shading curbs excess summer heat. Atomising misters tied into the building's environmental control system hold temperature and humidity steady, around 85 °F (29 °C) and 50 to 60 per cent humidity, in imitation of Costa Rica. Visitors enter through a double magnetic door, and flowering hillsides and a path over a waterfall and pond provide several vantage points and microclimates.

USDA rules governing more than a hundred non-native species required air barriers between the laboratory and the exits and airtight testing of every exhibit, flight zone included, before any insects were released; imported chrysalises hatch on site in a laboratory designed with biologists and the owner's in-house entomologist. The route is divided into five insect-themed areas (beetle, bee, ant, spider, butterfly), each with its own shape and colours. The wooden beams and ceiling panelling of the former store were kept in the reception area, and a donor wall carries iridescent glass butterflies from a local art-glass studio.

More than a thousand butterflies from around the world fly in the conservatory, representing about a hundred species according to the Salt Lake Tribune, none of them native to Utah: the most popular come from Costa Rica, others from Kenya, the Congo and parts of Asia, and all arrive as chrysalises. Wikipedia names the blue morpho and the atlas moth, and the official site recommends midday for butterfly activity and the evening for photographing them at rest and watching owl butterflies in flight. They live among tropical plants, flowering hillsides, a waterfall and a pond.

The Discovery Zone, the insectarium, gathers hundreds of live insects and arachnids: twenty species of tarantula, fist-sized beetles including the Goliath beetle, the black widow and the leafcutter ant colony, visible in clear tubing where the workers carry leaf fragments to their fungus gardens. Entomologists look after the animals and run critter encounters, bug races and science chats; a small add-on lets visitors witness the first flight of newly emerged butterflies.

The Butterfly Biosphere is one of Thanksgiving Point's seven venues in Lehi and is visited on a timed ticket booked in advance; an all-access pass covers all seven in a single day. Butterflies are most active around midday and quieten in the late afternoon, while evenings suit photographs of resting butterflies; the Costa Rica Climber, a two-storey play zone with tree houses, and the Discovery Zone do not depend on the time of day. The venue is wheelchair accessible and offers a sensory map. On the same site, the roughly 55-acre Ashton Gardens and the Museum of Ancient Life round out the day.