Visitors can get up close and personal with butterflies like this one through the end of this week at the Norma Johnson Center. (Norma Johnson Center)

DOVER (WJER) - The Norma Johnson Center is again hosting its annual butterfly exhibit this week. 

All-A-Flutter butterflies will be there from 10am to 4pm daily, and from noon to 4 on Sunday, the final day of the exhibit. Visitors enter an enclosed area where they can see the insects from chrysalis to caterpillar to butterfly. All-A-Flutter owner Fran LeMasters says she wants people to learn about them up close and personal.

“They’re just cool. They have all different personalities. You can tell by the way they’re flying whether they’re just hunting for food, whether they’ve got some predator chasing them, whether they’re in mating mode,” she says. “They just have so many personalities that you don’t realize just by looking at them.”

LeMasters says in addition to being beautiful, butterflies are important pollinators. 

“Scientists will go into certain areas and they’ll be studying an ecosystem, and they’ll actually do a butterfly count and a bee count to see how many different varieties are there,” she says. “They can tell the health of an ecosystem by the number of butterflies and the diversity of the butterflies.”

LeMasters says more than 200 people per day visit to feed the butterflies, buy chrysalises, and participate in butterfly-themed children’s activities.

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