Natural history museum launches iPhone app

By ERIC LINDBERG — June 19, 2009

While there is nothing more interactive than actually visiting the Butterflies Alive! exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, museum officials are inching closer to replicating the experience by introducing a new application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

Published for free online at the iTunes App Store, SBnature.app allows users to view a gallery of close-up photographs and learn more about various species of butterflies.

Those who can visit the exhibit itself can take advantage of a digital guide that will help them identify each of the more than 1,000 free-flying butterflies in the pavilion, in addition to listening to an audio tour or reading a brief history of the fluttering creatures.

“We are excited to be the first museum to release an app for the iPhone,” Dr. Karl Hutterer, executive director of the museum, said in a prepared statement. “Our mission is to inspire a thirst for discovery and a passion for the natural world. … Even so, communicating the wonders of science and nature can be challenging in this over-communicated world. So when the opportunity arose to leverage the iPhone as a communication vehicle, we didn’t hesitate to accept the offer.”

Interactivity has been a major focus of the museum since its inception — starting most recognizably with the rattlesnake button — a feature of the Southern Pacific rattlesnake exhibit in the courtyard that makes the snake’s tail rattle.

Bringing in digital tools such as the iPhone seemed like the next logical step, particularly when local companies iTMP Technology and Make It Work offered to put together the application free of charge.

“They basically have donated their time, their talent and their expertise,” said Easter Moorman, a spokeswoman for the museum.

“I grew up pushing the rattlesnake button, so I am very excited to give back with a donation to the museum and the community,” Jeremy Anticouni, chief innovation officer at Make It Work, said in a news release.

There are plans to expand the application to cover other exhibits in the museum and the Ty Warner Sea Center, Moorman said, and the next version should have some new features. The butterfly exhibit, open now at the museum, will run through the summer until September 21.

For those who don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch, Moorman noted there are other interactive opportunities at the museum.

The bird hall features a contraption that allows visitors to turn a crank and attempt to keep a bird at the appropriate height to maintain flight, while other areas of the museum offer a fossil dig pit, dioramas, and various buttons and small doors leading to interactive displays.

Photographs and a downloadable field guide for the butterfly exhibit are also available at www.sbnature.org.

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