Butterflies Alive!

16 September 2012

Went to the "Butterflies Alive" exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History with some friends who were visiting from Monterey.

We were lucky because it was the last day of the exhibit for the year. It will still be there, but it will be closed to let the butterflies rest.

I tried to photograph every variety of butterfly I saw there. They were accustomed to the people, so it was easy to get close to most of them.

 Mealtime!

 This one was iridescent in the light, an effect I was not able to catch on camera.

 Yes, that is a real butterfly sitting on the sign!

 Many of the butterflies had different designs or colors on the inside and outside of their wings, like this one in the next two photos.

 This soft gray butterfly in the above photo has semi-transparent wings, as you can see in the following picture with the three butterflies.

This one looks similar to a Monarch from the outer wings, but the photos above and below shoe that it's a different species. 

 Amazing camouflage - from most angles, this green one looked just like a leaf.

 This little butterfly was only about 3 cm but with big color!

They told us that most of the butterflies were collected in Florida, but there was one local representative, the Monarch butterfly.

At the end of the day, we had just time to peek into one of the museum exhibits before closing time.

 Shark!!!

I love the artwork on the museum van!