GAINESVILLE, Fl. -- Literally hundreds of the world's most beautiful and most fragile creatures live in a rainforest here.
Covering every color of the rainbow and wearing styles and patterns of dots, circles, streaks and lines, some 60 species of butterflies and moths inhabit the three-story high, 48,000-square-feet Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida Cultural Plaza (34th Street and Hull Rd).
Opened in August 2004, the Butterfly Rainforest has more than 3,000 plants, several small birds, dozens of flowering shrubs, a lizard or two, a waterfall and a 400-foot trail, enabling visitors to stroll at their leisure, surrounded by hundreds of fluttering objects of living art.
In addition to the 65-foot high screened living area for the plants and creatures, the museum features a huge "wall of wings" some 30-feet high and 200 feet long displaying thousands of butterfly and moth species from around the world.
Also, the building includes 39,000 square feet of research facilities (classroom and office space for 12 faculty curators and other staff), labs focusing on molecular genetics, electron microscopy, specimen preparation, etc. In addition to buying butterfly and moth pupae from several butterfly/moth farms from around the world, the museum also has its own The museum also operates its own rearing lab for the study of butterfly and moth reproduction and life cycle.
Butterflies normally have a life span of only a couple of weeks, so the Butterfly Rainforest is constantly replenishing its supply of winged creatures.
The $12 million museum has some four million lepidoptera (moths/butterflies) specimens, making the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity the second largest such collection in the world, trailing only the Natural History Museum in London, England. The facility is considered the top lepidoptera study center in the world.
The butterflies and moths range in size from about one-half of an inch long (Pigmy Blue from the U.S.) to a one-foot wingspan (Atlas Moth of Southeast Asia). There are about 265,000 species of butterflies and moths (only about 20,000 are butterflies).
In addition to its Butterfly Rainforest and study/research facilities the The Florida Museum of Natural History has extensive additional facilities, including an area featuring Northwest Florida waterways and wildlife, Florida fossils, a center dealing with the cultural history of native American Indians, a mammoth and mastodon, and a large collection of American Indian art. The museum's 21 million specimens make it the largest natural history museum in the Southeast.
The facility also includes a large gift shop.
Parking at the museum is $3 per vehicle (free on weekends and holidays). Admission is free for the museum but the Butterfly Rainforest costs $7.50 (adults), $4.50 (age 3-12), free for those under age 3.Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 1-5 Sunday (closed Thanksgiving and Christmas).
For more information on the museum visit the web site www.flmnh.ufl.edu.

This story was published on 01 Jul 2005.