Butterflies are back!
See hundreds of amazing and incredibly colourful Costa Rican butterflies in our Graham Amazon Gallery. During this extraordinary exhibit, you can pause for a while to observe butterflies feeding on nectar and fruit, camouflaging and fluttering from tree to tree.
The butterflies displayed in this exhibit come from environmentally-responsible butterfly farms in Costa Rica where the butterfly farming industry has thrived for over 25 years, providing farmers with economic incentive to preserve the environment.
Q. Where can I find butterflies?
A. Butterflies are found all over the world, on every continent, except Antarctica. They are found during the warmer months of the year in many different environments, frequently in sunny, exposed places with low-lying plants.
Q. Where do the butterflies at the Amazon Gallery come from?
A. The colourful butterflies found fluttering around the Amazon Gallery come from sustainable butterfly farms in Costa Rica where the butterfly farming industry has thrived for over 25 years. Butterflies are bred at the farm and shipped in the chrysalis or pupae stage. They emerge as butterflies while at the Aquarium. This unique, summer-only exhibit began as a project in 1996 and became such a popular feature with visitors that the Aquarium adopted Costa Rican butterflies as an annual special exhibit. During the course of the summer more than 7,000 butterflies, representing 30-50 species, are released into the free flight Graham Amazon Gallery.
Q. What is butterfly farming?
A. Butterfly farming is a method of harvesting butterfly chrysalises from butterfly host plants. The female will only lay her eggs on her host plant or plants. Butterfly farms maintain host plants, such as tropical plants, for different butterfly species and the captive butterfly population lay eggs on these plants. The eggs are then reared to the pupae stage for shipping.
Q. What is the life cycle of a butterfly?
A. An adult butterfly lays an egg. The egg hatches into a caterpillar or larva. The caterpillar grows to form the chrysalis or pupa. The chrysalis transforms into a butterfly.
Q. What can we do to help protect butterflies?
A. We can create butterfly-friendly gardens, planted with flowers and bushes that attract and host them. And we can stop using pesticides; these chemical harm insects such as butterflies.
Did you know?
- The average lifespan of an adult butterfly is approximately three to four weeks
- Currently, there are over 24,000 known species of butterflies
- Butterflies taste with their feet in order to find a good place to lay their eggs
- Adult butterflies feed on many items, including rotting fruit, animal waste and, most commonly, the nectar found in many flowers
- Butterflies only see three colors: red, green and yellow
- A butterfly can fly at a top speed of approximately 19 km per hour
