Steinhude Butterfly Farm

Steinhude Insect Museum with Insectarium

A visit to the insectarium is an interesting experience for young and old alike. The museum also offers engaging educational content for school groups, featuring live insects, recreated biotopes, and specimens. An illuminated mineral room, the “Dark Cabinet,” provides a relaxing atmosphere, and in a separate screening room, the “Insect Cinema,” visitors can watch exciting films.

Hidden in many terrariums are live walking leaves and ghost insects. Crawling beetles, tarantulas, millipedes and other insects can be admired. 

Visitors are given a further impression by numerous specimens. They show a cross-section of the largest and most beautiful beetles (e.g. the world's largest longhorned beetle), butterflies and moths. All exhibits are labeled with name, place and date of discovery. 

Butterfly farm: tropical hall and doll's house

After a tour of the insect museum, visitors enter the tropical hall. Here, from February through October, visitors can admire numerous—up to 400—tropical butterflies flying freely in a habitat that closely resembles their natural environment. Nearly 60 different species of butterflies live at the Steinhuder Butterfly Farm. Among other things, visitors can watch them feeding at nectar sources. In the warm, humid hall, tropical plants such as hibiscus and orchids bloom, in some cases, year-round. 

The butterfly farm requires a high level of care. It must be heated even in summer, as the cocoons and butterflies need a temperature of around 28 - 30 degrees and the humidity must be 80 - 90 percent. The special butterfly plants are changed every day, and the butterflies also need additional food (a mixture of pollen, honey and nectar) applied to the plants three times a day.

Most of the specimens are raised in other countries on special breeding farms; they have already passed the caterpillar stage by the time they arrive in Steinhude. The pupae then emerge there in the “Puppenstube.” The butterflies in the tropical greenhouse—just like their counterparts in the wild—live for only a few days. With a little luck, visitors to the “Puppenstube” can witness butterflies hatching. Almost every day in the morning—between about 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.—some of these delicate creatures emerge from their cocoons. 

The story behind the museum

With the opening of the butterfly farm in Steinhude in 2000, entomologist Hilmar Jun. Lehmann and his wife, Sabine Lehmann, made a dream come true. The couple collected all of the museum’s exhibits themselves over many years of work in tropical countries (particularly Thailand). On behalf of renowned universities and institutes, the two collected and identified insects in the Asian rainforests during the 1980s and 1990s: In total, they discovered around 150 new insect species, some of which were even named after them

At the beginning of 2007, the butterfly farm building was gutted, completely renovated and reopened.

Opening hours

From February:
Daily: 11:00 am - 5:00 pm

From March - June:
Daily: 11:00 am - 6:00 pm

From July - August:
Daily: 10:00 am - 6:00 pm

September:
Daily: 11:00 am - 6:00 pm

October to November 04:
Daily: 11:00 am - 5:00 pm

Winter break
The butterfly farm is closed from the beginning of November to the end of January.

(Status: June 04, 2025)

Note: The paths in the tropical greenhouse are at ground level and are accessible to wheelchairs and strollers.