How I got that job: Mary Babcock

Age: 61

Home: Apple Valley

Occupation: Invertebrate keeper and head of the Blooming Butterflies exhibit at Como Zoo

Salary: $35,000

Background: degree in biology

How did you get started working in zoos? I started [my career] in Sioux Falls, S.D., at Great Plains Zoo. We built a butterfly garden there. That was my first interaction with butterflies. I then got a job with the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department. I was volunteer coordinator, but we started breeding monarchs and then tagging them. I loved that. That led to a bigger interest in butterflies. When my husband got transferred to Minneapolis, I worked at the Minnesota Zoo, where I was in charge of their butterfly garden. I was then offered a job as director of a butterfly house back in Sioux Falls, which I took. During that time I was asked to be director of the International Association of Butterfly Exhibitions and Suppliers, which I just retired from about a year ago.

What do you do at Como Zoo? I take care of all the invertebrates, such as the insects, tarantulas, centipedes, different kinds of bugs. And, of course, butterflies fit into that category.

Are butterflies your favorite insect of those that you deal with? I really like our leafcutter ants ... I just really have a passion for them. I also like centipedes and jumping sticks that we have from Peru.

What is the Blooming Butterflies exhibit? It opened on June 18 and it will be open until Sept. 6. We get shipments [of butterflies] from around the world. We get butterflies from Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Kenya, Malaysia, Florida, Texas and here in Minneapolis.

Are there any problems with all these different butterflies living together? No. Some are a bit territorial, so you'll occasionally see one kind of bump another one out of the way. But they do fine. Butterflies are just more gentle creatures and they don't have teeth or something that will bite. They don't have the tools.

What happens to the butterflies at the end of the exhibit? We stop the shipments about three weeks before we close because the butterflies live four to six weeks. We try to have most of them die naturally in the exhibit. However, we want enough for the public to see at the end. The rest of them we have to capture, because the USDA will not allow us to release them due to agricultural pests.

Are there many USDA guidelines that you have to follow? There are. It's pages and pages and pages. They're strict about where our containment room is, the number of doors and who can go in. We have to have air curtains out in the exhibit that help blow the butterflies off of people. We have people at both doors, [making sure people don't have butterflies on them when they leave].