The Butterfly Pavilion has long been a beloved attraction for anyone with a soft spot for the spineless. The thousands of guests who pass through its doors in Westminster each month can pet a hissing cockroach, gawk at the many tarantulas (all named Rosie or Goldie), and wander through Wings of the Tropics, a 7,200-square-foot rainforest that’s home to 1,800 flittering butterflies.

But the Butterfly Pavilion is more than a niche attraction. Co-founded by local entomologists Michael Weissmann and Richard Peigler, the facility made history in 1995 when it became the first freestanding butterfly house and invertebrate zoo in the United States. Back then, its mission was simple: to make people grateful for insects by teaching them why bugs are important. It continues to meet that goal by hosting daily visitors, school field trips, and rotating exhibits such as Legacies: Invertebrates of Mexico, which is on display through the end of the year.

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For more than a decade, though, the nonprofit has been expanding its reach, evolving into a worldwide leader in invertebrate research and conservation. In 2013, the Butterfly Pavilion started the Colorado Butterfly Monitoring Network, which taps scientists across the state to help document struggling insect populations. “We’re losing these critters at an alarming rate, which should worry us,” says Rich Reading, science and conservation vice president at the Butterfly Pavilion. Insects, he adds, are essential to ecosystems—they break down waste, purify water, and form the food chain’s foundation. A world without them? “Total chaos,” Reading says.

Read More: How Scientists Are Working to Reverse Colorado’s Bug Decline

Courtesy of the Butterfly Pavillion
Courtesy of the Butterfly Pavillion
Courtesy of the Butterfly Pavillion

In 2017, the Butterfly Pavilion’s conservation work went global in earnest, starting with a project to save Parnassius butterflies in Mongolia; two years later, the nonprofit helped create a sustainable butterfly farm in Indonesia to protect endangered species there. Staff train community members in Sumatra to help raise butterflies at a Butterfly Pavilion–owned farm. The organization then sells those butterflies to other houses around the world. To directly restore habitats in Mexico, this year the Butterfly Pavilion announced a partnership with the federal government there to plant 100,000 oyamel fir trees in central Mexico, where monarchs spend the winter.

On the local level, the Butterfly Pavilion is restoring dwindling dragonfly and firefly populations in Colorado, working with municipalities to build pollinator habitats on the Eastern Plains, and helping the Colorado Department of Transportation figure out how to get tarantulas safely across the road. “Without us, there would be a gap in invertebrate research, conservation, and public education—not only in Colorado but worldwide,” says Mary Ann Colley, the Butterfly Pavilion’s chief operating officer. “We serve a critically important niche, just like invertebrates.”

3 Tips for Bringing Pollinators To Your Yard

  1. Plant native species. Rocky Mountain penstemon, blanket flower, and coneflower are pollinator-friendly and easy to find at local nurseries across the Front Range.
  2. Skip pesticides. Spraying chemicals harms helpful bugs, too. Instead, focus on keeping your native garden healthy, as pests such as the Japanese beetle prefer to snack on sick plants.
  3. Let the garden rest. Pollinators nest in leaf litter, so put down that rake and leaf blower. Once you see plants turning green in spring, slowly clean up as pollinators emerge.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said Sumatran farmers raised butterflies that are then sold to the Butterfly Pavilion, which releases them into the wild. We regret the error.