The Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida opened in August, 2004. David and I first visited the museum in September with my parents, who had come to visit for a week. We were very impressed by the number of butterfly species, knowledgeable docent staff, and plant variety in the exhibit.

The main water feature at the Florida Museum of Natural History Butterfly Exhibit

In January, after my parents gave me a digital camera for Christmas, David and I decided to go back to the exhibit and shoot some photography. Since we no longer had to worry about "wasting" film, we were much more tempted to take difficult and interesting shots. We took over 150 pictures. We enjoyed our experience and decided that butterflies would be an interesting new hobby. We bought yearly passes to the museum with plans of returning once every two or three months. Two months later, our butterfly "hobby" has evolved. We ventured to the exhibit 5 times in less than two months and took over 500 photographs. We also have plans to start a butterfly collection. Both of us have considered joining the docent staff. We have spent an incredible amount of time studying the genus and species of our butterflies, learning about different butterfly families and subfamilies, and classifying all of our pictures. Then we decided that we wanted to share our new love with our family and friends. Thus the Butterfly Page was born. We have several pages of our favorite shots along with hundreds of pictures of butterflies grouped by family or subfamily. Papilionidae and Nymphalidae are the two major families of butterflies while Heliconius and Morphidae are subfamilies of Nymphalidae. Common Papilionidae include swallowtails, while Nymphalidae includes the famous Monarchs.

A common Monarch Danaus plexippus

David and I hope you enjoy these pages and visit often. We are sure there will be many new additions. Also, if you see unidentified or misindentified butterflies, please get in touch with us at azure626@hotmail.com. Thanks! Back to main page