Butterflies - Chicago Botanic Gardens - Part 2
Butterflies of the Chicago Botanic Gardens
Hey everyone, as promised here is the second part from my volunteer day at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. As I mentioned previously, the gardens have a huge focus on education, and as part of their new learning center they have built a butterfly enclosure. Now, I have been in several butterfly exhibits at zoos around the country, but this is one of the best I have seen so far.
What makes this one so different?
Excellent question my good Steemian! What sets this exhibit apart from the others I have seen...all the butterflies in the exhibit are born there, and you can see them coming out of their chrysalis in the exhibit! There was actually one coming out while I was in there, tried to take some pictures, but it is just too hard to tell what is going on in them.
Little known fact about a butterfly that has just hatched(?), all the moisture that has built up in them while growing in the chrysalis needs to be expelled from their body before they can fly. In order to do this they will lay on the ground of wherever they have hatched and push all the liquid into their wings. They then flap their wings to increase the airflow over them and evaporate as much of the moisture as possible.
It was interesting watching these brand new butterflies just flap and flap and flap without going anywhere for the first 10 minutes after they emerged.
The Butterflies
Without any more rambling here are the awesome photos I got of these amazing butterflies!
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Each of these butterflies lives for about 4-6 weeks, which may seem like a short time, but in the wild their life expectancy is about 2-3 weeks due to predators. The only thing these butterflies have to worry about are the occasional smashing from someone stepping on them.
I hope you guys enjoyed these photos. The next time I visit I am going to try and get some good photos of a butterfly coming out of the chrysalis, it was pretty amazing to see.
Part One - Chicago Botanic Gardens
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Whoa man awesome pics, that black and blue one is the best. Like a tron Butterfly haha.
Yeah, I liked that one and the one at the very top the most! There was a tiny orange one that was actually the coolest I saw there by far, but it was hidden under a leaf and I couldn't get a good pic without making it fly away...just gotta make a trip back though!
Like these pics a lot and I may have to go there to check it out!
Definitely check it out if you can. The whole gardens are amazing, and there is always some special exhibit going on. If it wasn't raining I would have gone through the Brazil Biodiversity exhibit, they had brought in some absurd number of plants from Brazil, things we could never see here without the gardens.
Did the Garfield park conservatory and that was nice but not Botanic gardens yet.
Yeah the conservatory is nice too. The gardens are just so much bigger, and I feel like they change up the gardens a little more often. Plus, you can get the chance to the the Corpse Flower if you are there when one of them is in bloom. I had heard that there are a couple that might be close to blooming, or just bloomed? maybe?
OMG! This was good for my soul! Your picture quality is excellent. Upvoted and followed. Thanks for sharing.
I'm glad you enjoyed! I lucked out and they weren't very active cause of the rain...gave me a chance to get up real real close! Thanks for checking them out!
No worries Max! This as I had said, you did a lot for my state of mind. I have followed your channel and look forward to enjoying more of your content. My channel does vacation bookings, you can go have a look and follow if you like my stuff :)
Cheers!!
Awesome pics man
Thanks brother! Glad you enjoyed! I wish I could have gotten one of the butterfly coming out of the chrysalis though, next time hopefully.
beautiful <3
May not have had many fractals, but they are gorgeous!
Butterfly's symbolize rebirth to me due to the metamorphic changes they go through before/after emerging.
It's rather glorious, thanks for sharing. <3
This post has received a 6.84 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @mk40.