A Butterfly Museum Visit

My DH and I went to the Cockrell Butterfly Conservatory in Houston yesterday and I took a few pictures. It was so amazing and just breathtaking having hundreds of leps flying all around us, landing on our shoulders or my camera. The tropical plants were huge!

Most of them were of the neotropicals and couldn't find in my guides, so if you see some that are wrong, just let me know.

This was one of several chrysalis nurseries. It looked like they put a dab of glue on these strings to the chrysalis and lined them up to eclose.

Achillides Swallowtail, many of the bfs had torn wings. I'm not sure why. There also were some small blue birds which I thought was strange to have in with the bfs.

Blue Morpho

Clipper

Another A. Swallowtail

The blue one to the left is a Blue Cracker

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This message was edited Nov 22, 2006 10:41 AM

Acontius and Owl

Common Morpho

Doris Butterfly

Large Tree Nymph, these were large, about 5" across and so unique.

Postman

Scarlet Mormon

Sapho Longwing

Rosina Longwing

Flame Julia

Tiger Longwing

Zebra Longwing

They had this beautiful waterfall that went from the top down to a pool at the bottom, it had the greatest sound. It echoed with huge boulders all around it.

Here's the top

Here's one of the huge Spathe? flower blooms

This was a display at the entrance, it was pretty but sad they were all just specimens for the display.

They also had displays of prehistoric leps that were really interesting....this was one.....I'd hate to run into one of these at night...or day.

There's a few more, if you really beg I'll put them on.....Lol. I hope I didn't give too many wrong id's.

Looks like you had a most educational day! Wow, are most of those butterflies native to Texas or Mexico? What a neat place! Thanks for posting all the lovely butterflies that you saw there! Almost makes ya want to work at a place like that, doesn't it?

It was so much fun....dh begged me to leave after a couple hours. It was steamy in there, like a big terrarium. It was also full of kids on field trips, which was neat. The problem was I started shooing bfs off the paths where there was water. They were puddling there and could have been stepped on. I knew then it was time for me to leave.
It would be very cool to work there, a dream job.

Most of those leps are not from N.A., the Zebra is in Florida and Texas. I'll go back and post where they are native.

Awesome pictoral of your visit fly!! How fun was that??.. We can tell!! Echo thanks for posting the pics..

Sure would be Becky!

Fly - isn't that museum just the most wonderful place? I could spend days in there! I love your pictures.

I went to one near Miami a few Christmas's ago. It is truly awesome. Think DH and I spent about 4 hours there.
Love to see more pics pretty please

Fly,

Those are great!!! I've been contemplating taking a drive to Houston just to visit the Cockrell Conservatory but can't seem to get coordinated with my sister-in-law and a friend of hers who also wants to go on that road trip. It's about a six hour drive for me :o)

Thanks everyone! And Donna....you are so sweet to ask for more :)

TPP, that is a long drive! It is really a neat place and there's the dinosaur, African animals, and other exhibits that change periodially. Yesterday was also the Ben Franklin Exhibit, which was so incredibly boring. It had very little hands on displays, just docs to read, ugh. And, while in there because DH wanted to see it and he suffered through the bf with me, all I could think about is the bfs I may have missed getting a pic of or a better one lol.
They had a lot of cool bugs in little aquariums and a ton of pinned bfs which bothers me to look at so I didn't spend much time there. I can't stand to see them on a pin.

Okay, you talked me into it....here's some more. I haven't looked them all up so I'll just post and if you know, I'll add it.

This is a better one of the Blue Cracker, he was unusual.

Here's an Atlas moth, he was on a pin, wasn't he gorgeous?

These Blue Morphos just wouldn't open their wings for me, they were just the prettiest blue.

The Owls wouldn't open very much either, this is one in the middle, they have a little bit of blue. When they were on trees, they were really hard to see.

Here's another nursery, isn't it amazing how they do it? I am so afraid of moving a chrysalis and the cremaster and they must do it like an assembly line. I didn't see any cats in the house, so I don't know if they pick them up daily and put them in a nursery. If they left all the cats in there, there would be no foliage in that place.

My gosh! Those photos just make me smile! Don't ya just love these flying beauties? Who could resist stopping and just watching them flying and landing? Not me! I am totally in awe!

Thanks fly_girl for posting so many butterflies that I will probably never see here locally!

How many different butterflies are there in the world? Anyone know?

I don't know what this little one is, his wings are in pretty bad shape.

Here's one of the plants, huge!

I don't know what this one is either.

Now that's what ya call a "Chrysalis Nursery"! Great photo!

I have a small clear cage that I like to get as many of my Monarchs to morph to chrysalis hanging from the cage lid. I've had as many as 22 chrysalis at one time hanging in that small area. It looked so cool! Currently I only have 10 hanging there. Everyone gets a kick out of seeing even that many all hanging together like little green ornaments. lol

This one was dead, but he looked like he was a beauty.