CLEVELAND — If you take a visit to the Costa Rica Glasshouse at the Cleveland Botanical Garden you’ll see hundreds of butterflies flying around the room.
“It really opens your eyes to the connection with nature, you know, and the biodiversity of our planet. Everything you see in here is nothing you’d see in Cleveland,” said Jillian Slane, the director of exhibits and experiences at the Cleveland Botanical Garden.
Slane said they usually release 200 to 300 butterflies each week, year-round.
The butterflies are more active when there’s more sunshine, which is part of the reason the garden decided to only release them between April and September this year, Slane said.
“We are planning to release 600 a week and their lifespan is, depending on species, between three to 12 weeks,” she said.
The butterflies come from different countries with eight different species are present in the garden.
“And they come in that pupae stage. So they’re in the cocoon and they’re just kind of hanging out there waiting to cook up and be released. So that’s how we receive them,” Slane said.
Guests can watch the butterflies fly around and catch pictures of them landing on the many plants in the glasshouse.
Slane said the butterflies like to land on the flowers for nectar but that’s not all they eat.
“We also feed them bananas, which they can get their nectar from,” she said.
In addition to the butterfly exhibit, the garden has a new moth scavenger hunt for kids at the Hershey Children’s Garden.
