At the Butterfly House

As I mentioned last week, my Mom was able to visit the Butterfly House during her visit to St Louis. The butterflies are in the large glass conservatory, which is a warm, tropical environment, with lots of plants, and pathwaya where you walk right in among the butterflies. They also had some other exhibits, and a short movie about the butterfly life cycle and how important butterflies are to all life on earth, because they are responsible for pollinating lots of plants.

My Mom knew she would be disappointed about not getting a lot of good pictures from the Butterfly House, because most of the time the butterflies were flying, and not settling on the plants. However she did get some closeup pictures of a couple of butterflies.

She believes this first one is a Blue Morpho. There were a lot of them there, but when they settled, only the underside of their wings showed, and instead of the brilliant blue-turquoise color, you got to see the camouflage side:


She hasn't been able to work out the name of this gorgeous one, but she thought it was truly beautiful. Do any of you know what it is? The plant it was on had orange pom-pom flowers dangling from it, so even with this bright coloring, I guess it was still camouflaged.


From the Butterfly Directory for the Butterfly House, we find that this one is a Scarlet Mormon, from Southeast Asia.

And this picture comes from their website too, showing you what the top of the Blue Morpho looks like. They come from Central and South America.
http://www.butterflyhouse.org/butterflies/butterflydetails.aspx?id=28&cp=1

Introducing ....... The Black Swallowtail

When the butterflies reached the stage of emerging from the chrysalis, Dad put the terrarium inside my Funhouse, which became a temporary butterfly house. For the first butterfly, this happened in the garage, because it was wet and rainy outside. By the time the second one was ready, the weather was better and Dad did it outside:


It took a long time from the time the butterfly emerged from the chrysalis until it was ready to fly: apparently they pump blood into their wings to fill them out, and then the wings have to harden some before the butterfly is ready for flying. So #2 spent time clinging to the parlsey and to the twigs in the terrarium. Dad had the flap to the funhouse open so he could leave when he was ready.

Most of the pictures show the underside of the wings better than the top side. For these butterflies, it seems the underside is more colorful than the top. But it is the pattern of yellow vs blue on the top side that indicates whether the black swallowtail is male or female. We believe this guy is male because there is more yellow than blue on the top side of the wings. Though this last photo is a little out of focus, it is the best one Dad got showing the pattern on the back (top) of the wings.


Mom is home now, which makes me feel better - I like to have all my family together. Also she doles out more food for me! I plan to reclaim my Funhouse tomorrow and spend the day like this:


I also hope to get to all my friends' blogs to comment, since I haven't been able to do that as much as I would like this past week.

Visit to the Butterfly House

My Mom has been on a trip to St Louis, Missouri, and I have learned that today she visited the Butterfly House in Chesterfield, Mo. She saw hundred of live butterflies in the Conservatory there. It was especially great to be able to visit it, because she missed seeing our butterflies at home. When she gets home and can look at her pictures, she hopes to have some to show, though apparently taking still pictures was not too successful, because most of the flutterbys were in flight most of the time.

If you ever get a chance to go, she really recommends it.

"Butterflight"

Both butterflies have "hatched" and one has flown free. This is how my Dad described the first one to my Mom in an email (she is on a short trip):

"Our beautiful butterfly found her way out of Simba's funhouse immediately when it was opened at 12:50 on a sunny afternoon. She soared on a light breeze above the deck with just a few flutters of her wings and remained in sight for only a moment or two.."

The second one emerged during the afternoon and was able to fly away in the evening.

Correction: it spent the night in the funhouse with the flap open, clinging to its twig. Dad left the funhouse open for it to fly away when things got a bit warmer.

Dad has taken some video and some pictures, but Mom is the one who does my blogging work for me and knows how to upload pictures and stuff. So we will be hoping to post something for you to see on Sunday.

News

The first butterfly has "hatched" this morning - hopefully pictures to follow but my usual photographer is not at home, so we shall see. Exciting, though, because today is exactly 11 days since the first caterpillar started turning into its chrysalis!

It wasn't flying yet, just kind of moving and hopping - wings need to dry out. For today it is in my "funhouse", along with its brother/sister chrysalis in the terrarium- probably to be released to fly away this afternoon.

Wordless Wednesday

Dozing on Tuesday

Not actually a new picture of me, but appropriate to what I am doing. Have a great day everybody.

Chillin' on Sunday

Truthfully it is raining today so my towel is rather soggy, as is my Funhouse. But I will be chillin' inside.

PhotoHunt-Numerical

Before my human brother's wedding, my folks spent a little time in the Smoky Mountains. They didn't go on this trail, though!
They can tell you a story about a shelter and a bear from an overnight hiking trip in the Smokies a squillion years ago, ........... if you are willing to believe them.