Butterfly Biosphere Take Two

In March, everyone finished ALL the conference talks. We decided to visit the Butterfly Biosphere as our reward. It has been a while since I've been there. I went with Robyn in 2019 to help her get some Bio encounters. Ivory needed the same thing this time around, but we took everyone and had a great time. 

Yep, we still had masks back then. But that is okay. I liked the art they have up. 

Okay everyone, let's go explore.

You may recall that the bright colors are on the inside of the butterflies wings. When they rest and fold their wings in, the browns blend in with tree bark. However, some can still camouflage with their colors. Can you see the sneaky one here?

Last time we went, I felt like it was fine if the butterflies landed on you, but you shouldn't actively try to pick them up. This time, they said it was okay to pick them up. In fact one lady was teaching us how to put your fingers in front of their legs so they will crawl up onto you. It was pretty neat. After that, almost everyone was holding a butterfly most of the time.

Or two.

However, possibly because more people were holding them, I also noticed a lot more damaged butterflies. All over, were butterflies missing parts of their wings or looking rather tattered from all the attention.

We had such a good time holding and examining to the butterflies. So many beautiful species.

Take a good look at Daisy in the background. You may have noticed the lack of pictures of Daisy holding butterflies. She hates insects. I didn't realize that included butterflies. She was basically terrified to be in a place where something could land on you at any moment. Poor girl.

The girls spent some time putting butterflies on Ivory's leg. They really seemed happy hanging out there.

Here are a few more close encounters.

We spent some time looking at the cocoons. There were some butterflies emerging. Can you see the still damp wrinkled wings?

There were other cool things to look at in the Biosphere. We saw them feeding a preying mantis. 

Daisy and I left the butterfly enclosure sooner than everyone else for previously mentioned reasons. Poor Daisy. So we went to check out more bugs to her delight. At least these ones were behind plexiglass. The leaf cutter ants were super cool. All of them were so busy moving pieces of leaf from one place to another.

I like how well the stick insects blend in. I wonder if I have seen more of these in my lifetime than I realize?

These are Daisy's kind of bugs. Plastic and stationary.

Eventually everyone came out to join us. It was a really fun time and despite Daisy's reservations, I think it was good to hang with the butterflies.