UF’s butterfly exhibit will soon include two continents.
The Florida Museum of Natural History’s Butterfly Rainforest exhibit is introducing a new theme, Butterflies of Africa, on Saturday.
Museum marketing and public relations coordinator Kaitlin Gardiner said this theme will bring in exotic species such as Forest Queens, Flame-bordered Charaxes and Black Swordtails.
Every six weeks, the museum changes the theme of the exhibit and ships in a new crop of butterflies, she said.
Michael Boulware, a living exhibit specialist at the museum, said most butterflies live naturally for two to three weeks, so precautions must be taken to make sure the butterflies live long enough to inhabit the exhibit.
“When people are sending us a chrysalis, they refrigerate it,” Boulware said. “They pack it in cold packs to ship it so that they don’t age chronologically during that time. That way, we have as much shelf time as possible.”
Mitul Patel, a 20-year-old UF biology junior, said he heard about the new theme and enjoyed his previous museum visit.
“I would definitely be interested in going,” he said. “I would on a nice Saturday afternoon.”
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 2/11/2014 under the headline "Exhibit spreads wings"]
