More butterflies

This is the last batch of butterfly photos. The Butterfly Pavilion has a constant supply from all over the world. Every day more emerge and are released to flutter around the conservatory.
Such as this newly hatched one, which obligingly posed for photos on a curator's sleeve.
Here's another, fanned out on a leaf. I'm sorry I didn't get their names. I'll call this one Bob.
Bob decided to move to another leaf, invoking the wrath of ... George? Well, I don't know if was wrath, but George seemed pretty agitated, furiously fluttering as close as he could get without making contact. Or maybe Bob is really Roberta and George was making moves on her. Who knows?
Then there was this one, who seemed quite feminine. I'll call her Lucy. Pretty girl!
Finally, a butterfly whose motto is "Leaf me alone!" I'll call her Greta. She had the most impressive camouflage of all.
I guess this is a good post for the first day of spring, which here in the Mountain time zone starts at 11:48 tonight.

Happy spring!

Meet the owl butterfly

While Rosie the tarantula is fun to visit at the Butterfly Pavilion, the butterflies are of course the real attraction. We happened to get there just when they were about to release some newly hatched butterflies. This fellow (gal?) is an owl butterfly, native to Central and South America.
The moniker comes from the large spot, natch, which is designed to scare off predators. But this guy also has a backup defense: a snake head. See it there, facing right?

Apparently holding the butterfly that way doesn't harm it, but we were warned not to let any butterfly walk on our skin; the oils will muck up the tastebuds in their feet (!).
Here's a happier fellow, noshing on a rotten banana (and getting a taste through his toes, presumably.)

Many butterflies will have dull-colored or camouflaged patterns on the outsides of their wings, but brightly colored interior patterns, which they will flash when threatened as another means to startle predators and chase them away.
Here you can see his long tongue, going to town on the banana.
Yum! Maybe I should make some banana bread today.

Rosie outlook

Here's something you don't get to do every day!

This is Rosie the tarantula, who is really one of about 30 Rosies in the stable at The Butterfly Pavilion. Rosie hangs out in a room full of creepy-crawlies, most of them behind glass, and thankfully so. Hissing cockroaches and giant centipedes? Yeeccchhhh.

But Rosie's pretty cool, and you get sticker for letting her march across your palm.

I got some nice shots of butterflies, too. I'll post them later.