Butterflies of Costa Rica

We spent one morning at the Si Como No Resort & Spa Butterfly House, during which I had the opportunity to get a close view and sketch several of their beautiful butterflies.  Inside the house is a garden of plants selected to provide each of the different butterfly species food and a place to lay their eggs.

The butterfly eggs are gathered each day and carefully incubated until they hatch.  The hatched catepillars are individually raised on their food of choice until they pupate.  When the pupa are ready to hatch they are taken to the upper deck in the Butterfly House.  When the butterflies first emerge they have to pump fluid into their wings to expand them.  Once expanded, the wings have to dry before the butterflies can use them to fly.  This takes quite a while.  From our vantage point on the deck we could watch the butterflies emerging from the pupa as well as view all the others flying around the Butterfly House.


Before leaving, we wandered the trails viewing the butterflies up close.  It was a very relaxing and fun morning.  I had a great time sketching the different species we saw that day.