Hey everyone, as promised here is the second part from my volunteer day at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. As I mentioned previously, the gardens have a huge focus on education, and as part of their new learning center they have built a butterfly enclosure. Now, I have been in several butterfly exhibits at zoos around the country, but this is one of the best I have seen so far.

What makes this one so different?

Excellent question my good Steemian! What sets this exhibit apart from the others I have seen...all the butterflies in the exhibit are born there, and you can see them coming out of their chrysalis in the exhibit! There was actually one coming out while I was in there, tried to take some pictures, but it is just too hard to tell what is going on in them.

Little known fact about a butterfly that has just hatched(?), all the moisture that has built up in them while growing in the chrysalis needs to be expelled from their body before they can fly. In order to do this they will lay on the ground of wherever they have hatched and push all the liquid into their wings. They then flap their wings to increase the airflow over them and evaporate as much of the moisture as possible.

It was interesting watching these brand new butterflies just flap and flap and flap without going anywhere for the first 10 minutes after they emerged.