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Our story
From a backyard
to a world.
Butterfly World is the result of one man’s lifelong passion for butterflies, taken to extraordinary heights — and a family-owned business in South Florida since 1988.
Milestones
A timeline of wings
Dates are those documented on butterflyworld.com.
- 1968Ronald Boender — raised on his Dutch immigrant family’s farm in Illinois, where Cabbage Whites, Black Swallowtails and Silk Moths first caught his eye — moves to Florida. After a career as an electrical engineer he retires to raise native butterflies and host plants in his backyard.
- 1984He founds MetaScience Co., a commercial butterfly farm supplying universities and zoos. The team soon produces up to 1,000 pupae a week and develops rearing techniques Butterfly World still uses.
- 1985Boender travels to England and meets Clive Farrell, founder of the London Butterfly House. They become friends and business partners.
- 1988March 28: Butterfly World opens — acres of butterfly aviaries, botanical gardens and a research facility. Butterfly World describes it as the first butterfly house in the United States and the largest in the world. The Bring Back the Butterflies campaign launches the same year.
- 1990“I just decided I wanted to create something so beautiful that people would come here and say, ‘This must be what heaven is like.’” — Ron Boender, quoted in the New York Times, January 28, 1990.
- SinceThe park adds two tropical bird aviaries, the interactive Lorikeet Encounter and an aviculture research and care staff. Boender helps create the Te Boender Endangered Species Laboratory at the University of Florida, working on the recovery of the endangered Schaus swallowtail.
- 2019Ronald Boender publishes Passionflowers: A Pictorial Guide, an atlas of nearly 1,000 photographs of wild Passiflora.
- 2025He publishes Discover the Enchanted World of Flora, a guide to more than 100 flowering plants.
In his words
“This must be what heaven is like.”
BUTTERFLY WORLD Coconut Creek, FL · YouTubeMission
Conservation
& legacy
Bring Back the Butterflies. Launched in 1988, this North American campaign gives anyone free butterfly-gardening materials for their region. Butterfly World credits it with creating thousands of new butterfly habitats across the continent.
Te Boender Endangered Species Laboratory. Boender reinvested park resources and expertise to create this laboratory at the University of Florida. Working with scientists there, Butterfly World has helped re-establish the endangered Schaus swallowtail in South Florida.
Today Butterfly World welcomes visitors from around the globe to experience nature, learn about conservation and help protect these delicate creatures for generations to come.