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The Monteverde Butterfly Garden was founded in 1989 by biologist Jim Wolfe and his wife Marta Iris Salazar. The couple raises about 50 Monteverde butterfly species by hand. Students can explore various insects (creatures that make up over 75% of all animal species!). Each of the four gardens represents a different local butterfly habitat, and one can see the insects up close through the “bug cam,” and also watch the leaf cutter ant colony.
- As students get a mini-course in tropical entomology, they learn about the feeding needs for different species and how male butterflies have adapted their sense of smell to detect female butterflies.
- Students visit the medicinal plant garden, which contains more than seventy plants used as medicines throughout the world.
Did you know?
- Costa Rica contains 90% of the world’s butterfly species.
- Butterflies "taste" with their feet! Butterfly feet are actually tiny receptors that allow them to "taste" the food that they are standing on.
- A caterpillar grows to about 27,000 times the size it was when it first emerged from its egg.
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