by Doug and I aren’t big natural history museum fans, but if you throw in a “Butterfly Rainforest” you’ll lure me in. Doug was still not interested (the last butterfly exhibit he spent at a brewery), so I sent him off to the Antarctic Dinosaur exhibit instead.
The Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida, typically has a population of 700 to 1,000 butterflies and moths, with 50 different species represented.
Butterflies have a short life span of just two to five weeks, so butterflies are brought from around the world as chrysalises; they are released into the exhibit after emerging as adults.
The exhibit is 6,400 square feet and is screened, so the butterflies experience the Florida weather conditions. The exhibit is lush with plants and water features, and includes birds and turtles.
On my other butterfly visit, I had a really hard time getting the butterflies to cooperate with my picture taking –– they just would not land, open their wings, and sit there while I framed the picture. But in this museum the butterflies were super cooperative –– so much so that I started to wonder if they had been sedated.
Needless to say, I had a lot of fun oohing and aahing at the beautiful and amazing variety found in our natural world. I wandered back and forth over the short paths several times, each time finding something new and exciting.
Love this post! Beautiful pictures. Awesome!
Thanks!