A new exhibit at Butterfly Pavilion offers insight into the evolution of its invertebrate residents, as well as humans and other vertebrates.

For millions of years, Earth was home to single-celled organisms and simple lifeforms — until the Cambrian explosion changed the evolutionary course.

“The Cambrian explosion was a period of time 450 million years ago where arthropods evolved and there was this really cool radiation of life,” Butterfly Pavilion’s Director of Animal Collections, Sara Stevens, said. “Before then, there was some minor evolution that had occurred, but it was pretty slow. And then you hit this period of time 450 million years ago, and there’s just this huge diversity of animals that kind of came out of nowhere.”

Stevens said that the new exhibit, “Origins: Building Life,” focuses on that explosion of life and how evolution made animals, including humans, what they are today.

“All animal life has these similar (genetic) building blocks, but when you put them together in different ways, that’s when you start to get diversity, and the Cambrian explosion was really the first time we got to see that diversity happen,” she said.

The animals highlighted in the exhibit will be living descendants of the creatures that evolved during the Cambrian era, like pikaia, a mollusk-like animal that modern garden snails descend from. Or eurypterid, a sea scorpion that evolved into modern arachnids.

Many invertebrates from the pavilion’s collection will be on display, including a colorful arrangement of isopods — from the peachy-pink papaya isopod to the yellow-spotted gestroi isopod.

In addition to connecting with invertebrates, creatures with no vertebrae — like bugs, slugs and anemones — the exhibit will also highlight the Cambrian explosion’s connection to vertebrates, including humans.

“A big question and the work I do is vertebrates all evolved from invertebrates, and you have this invertebrate zoo here, so it seems like it could be a cool idea to have some kind of link to Butterfly Pavilion,” said Daniel Medeiros, associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Medeiros specializes in the evolutionary biology of vertebrates.

“I study the genetic and genomic basis of macroevolutionary changes, how new groups arise on the planet over time, and I focus on vertebrates — but I’m a big fan of invertebrates,” he said.

Medeiros said that even though his work is focused on vertebrates, he was working on getting grant funding for research when he saw an opportunity to work with the pavilion, the world’s first invertebrate zoo accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

He said that most grant funding in his field requires an outreach component, a way for granters to see that scientists are teaching and demonstrating their research to the public. The exhibit was concocted as the outreach portion of a grant from the National Science Foundation, which funded Medeiros and his labs’ studies of evolution.

“I work in the vertebrate realm, I just think about vertebrates. So it’s just super fun to go (to Butterfly Pavilion) and see Rosie (the tarantula) and the horseshoe crabs and octopi…and I just love it there,” Medeiros said. “They do such a great job and there’s always so many people there, a lot of school-aged kids. So I was like, ‘well this would be awesome.’”

“The same genes and developmental processes of genes that build us are the same that build the butterflies…which really speaks to the fact that we’re not too distantly related from these organisms,” he said. “I hope the exhibit will help people understand why invertebrates are important, or have a little bit more sympathy or connection to invertebrates.”

The exhibit is open now to the public, with tickets available online at butterflies.org or in person at the pavilion, 6252 W. 104th Ave., Westminster.