Florida Museum unveils online butterfly identification guide

December 15, 2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Museum of Natural History today launched a new online butterfly identification guide to help visitors identify the different species in the Butterfly Rainforest exhibit.

Organized by color, the guide contains photographs and information on the more than 150 different species the museum has displayed in the live exhibit since it opened in 2004. To view the guide, visit www.flmnh.ufl.edu/butterflies/guide/.

“This guide has been an idea for a long time,” said Jeff Hansen, vivarium assistant manager. “Now people who are interested have the opportunity to go online and identify butterflies they viewed or photographed during their visit.”

The Butterfly Rainforest, part of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, usually flies 60 to 80 different species and hundreds of butterflies at any given time. Because some butterflies are seasonal, the species change throughout the year. Photos will be added to the guide as new species are released into the exhibit.

Visitors are encouraged to post their photographs or identification questions on the museum’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/FloridaMuseum, or e-mail Ryan Fessenden, rfessenden@flmnh.ufl.edu.

The rainforest is open yearround and new butterflies are released into the exhibit every Saturday and Sunday at 2, 3 and 4 p.m., weather permitting.

The McGuire Center is the world’s largest Lepidoptera research facility and houses one of the world’s largest collections of butterflies and moths at more than 9 million specimens.