Feeding a butterfly at Greathouse Butterfly Farm
Springtime brings images of flowers blooming, bees buzzing and butterflies flitting around the garden. If you’re a baby boomer traveler planning a spring break to Florida, don’t spend all of your days at the beach. Save some time to celebrate spring with Florida’s butterflies.
Begin your butterfly explorations at Greathouse Butterfly Farm in Earlton, just a few miles down the road from Gainesville. The visit to North America’s largest butterfly farm starts indoors with a lesson in “Butterflies 101.” Did you know that a butterfly’s proboscis works like a child’s party favor, only backwards?
Later as you walk through the garden, you’ll learn how to attract butterflies to your backyard at home. Bet you didn’t know it requires plants for caterpillars as well as plants for grown-up butterflies. And stop spraying those weeds. Butterflies love them.
For me, visiting the butterfly barn was the most fun of all. After dipping a sponge paint brush into a Gatorade solution, I giggled as butterflies landed to feed. What is it about butterflies that makes me smile? Soon I had learned about spotting caterpillar eggs, stages of a chrysalis and emerging butterflies.
Butterfly Rainforest, Florida Museum of Natural History
But, wait, your spring butterfly visit isn’t done yet. Stop in at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida’s campus in Gainesville to observe scientists working on the butterfly collection that spans three floors. Stroll through the Butterfly Rainforest (that’s Vivarium in butterfly expert talk) where hundreds of butterflies float in a screened enclosure. A walking trail winds next to waterfalls decorated with sub-tropical foilage and, of course, butterflies. It’s peaceful and exhilarating all at the same time.
Are you a butterfly fan? Post a comment to tell me about your favorite butterfly hangouts. I’m on the hunt.
