devilfish
Well-Known Member
Though not a zoo, the Natural History Museum’s latest exhibition is, in my opinion, better than the poly tunnels offered by most zoos as a butterfly exhibit. At £6 entry per adult, it’s quite pricey, but not bad considering that entry to the museum is free and it’s still reasonably priced relative to other attractions in central London. The exhibition opened at the beginning of May and will be going until September.
The exhibition consists of three areas; the first is an outdoor exploration area, where you walk through a wooden cut out of a ‘Rafflesia’, and pass through a living tunnel of interwoven saplings. At the end of the short tunnel is a small interactive station for kids, asking questions about the rainforest. Following this is the free flight area: a large, open room with various ‘islands’ of plants and vivaria.
The building is split in half longitudinally (with a barrier partially of banana trees,) so that you walk the length of the building, exit, visit the children’s playground which is outside, and then come back in.
Inside the free-flight area, the first ‘island’ to be encountered is a small one heaving with lemon trees and caterpillars, as well as a vivarium for ‘Charlie’, a green iguana who was one of only two live animals on display in the recent Darwin exhibition. On the left is a row of vivaria displaying cockroaches, beetles, millipedes, a juvenile jaguar carpet python and an emperor scorpion. Further ahead, there is a rich flowerbed on the left with Strelitzia, passionflowers and various other tropical plants, and on the right are more vivaria (exhibiting a Madagascar day gecko, Indian ornamental and blue tarantulas, a horned frog named ‘Sumo’, and an Amazon centipede [Scolopendra angulata angulata] which I am desperate to see, but have not yet been able to. There was also a Vietnamese gliding frog on display with the gecko until recently.)
Outside is a simple playground with various interactive, but when you re-enter, you walk a winding trail past bushes, a feeding station and a hatchery for new cocoons. The variety seen here is incredible, from morphos and leafwings to hawk moths and comet moths; it’s one of the best live butterfly collections I’ve seen. At the end of the trail, there’s a small area to fill in feedback forms and then the exit takes you through the shop.
Compared with other butterfly exhibits which I have recently been to, I was surprised with the degree of planting as some areas actually seemed a bit bare when it first opened, though they are gradually planting more. It is still not much of a jungle by London Zoo’s heavily planted standards, nor is it as excessively humid. Another thing that surprised me was the number of butterflies – there weren’t too many, which meant that you had to look for them and appreciated it when a blue morpho would fly overhead. The butterflies are reproducing well, and the museum receive a weekly shipment of new cocoons each week. Though they started with about 500 free-flying butterflies, they are estimating that at the current rate, they will have around 1500 by September.
A couple of photos will be going up soon.
Sorry about the large amounts of detail and lack of clarity – I wasn’t expecting to write so much.
The exhibition consists of three areas; the first is an outdoor exploration area, where you walk through a wooden cut out of a ‘Rafflesia’, and pass through a living tunnel of interwoven saplings. At the end of the short tunnel is a small interactive station for kids, asking questions about the rainforest. Following this is the free flight area: a large, open room with various ‘islands’ of plants and vivaria.
The building is split in half longitudinally (with a barrier partially of banana trees,) so that you walk the length of the building, exit, visit the children’s playground which is outside, and then come back in.
Inside the free-flight area, the first ‘island’ to be encountered is a small one heaving with lemon trees and caterpillars, as well as a vivarium for ‘Charlie’, a green iguana who was one of only two live animals on display in the recent Darwin exhibition. On the left is a row of vivaria displaying cockroaches, beetles, millipedes, a juvenile jaguar carpet python and an emperor scorpion. Further ahead, there is a rich flowerbed on the left with Strelitzia, passionflowers and various other tropical plants, and on the right are more vivaria (exhibiting a Madagascar day gecko, Indian ornamental and blue tarantulas, a horned frog named ‘Sumo’, and an Amazon centipede [Scolopendra angulata angulata] which I am desperate to see, but have not yet been able to. There was also a Vietnamese gliding frog on display with the gecko until recently.)
Outside is a simple playground with various interactive, but when you re-enter, you walk a winding trail past bushes, a feeding station and a hatchery for new cocoons. The variety seen here is incredible, from morphos and leafwings to hawk moths and comet moths; it’s one of the best live butterfly collections I’ve seen. At the end of the trail, there’s a small area to fill in feedback forms and then the exit takes you through the shop.
Compared with other butterfly exhibits which I have recently been to, I was surprised with the degree of planting as some areas actually seemed a bit bare when it first opened, though they are gradually planting more. It is still not much of a jungle by London Zoo’s heavily planted standards, nor is it as excessively humid. Another thing that surprised me was the number of butterflies – there weren’t too many, which meant that you had to look for them and appreciated it when a blue morpho would fly overhead. The butterflies are reproducing well, and the museum receive a weekly shipment of new cocoons each week. Though they started with about 500 free-flying butterflies, they are estimating that at the current rate, they will have around 1500 by September.
A couple of photos will be going up soon.
Sorry about the large amounts of detail and lack of clarity – I wasn’t expecting to write so much.
