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Home > Latest News > 2008 > 5 > 23 >

Bristol Zoo Gardens’ new butterfly exhibit officially opens

 

A tropical rainforest themed butterfly house will be officially unveiled at Bristol Zoo Gardens later this week.

 

Butterfly Forest at Bristol Zoo GardensThe new house features spectacular and striking butterfly and moth species from across the world, as well as tropical plants and flowers.

 

Named 'Butterfly Forest', the undercover walk-through exhibit is home to species such as the impressive blue morpho, the pale owl butterfly and the zebra-winged butterfly, as well as the giant atlas moth, the postman butterfly and the rusty-tipped page butterfly.

 

The new exhibit is a celebration of the amazing variety of butterflies and moths found across the world, from the Arctic to the tropics. There are around 18,000 known butterfly and moth species, but in recent years this diversity has declined dramatically, mainly due to human activity such as agriculture, logging and urban expansion.

Butterfly Forest at Bristol Zoo Gardens

Visitors to the Zoo will be able to see how chrysalises transform into butterflies inside the Zoo's glass-fronted butterfly 'incubation' room within the exhibit.

 

The Butterfly Forest will create links with butterfly projects in Kenya and Costa Rica. Bristol Zoo Gardens already supports work to protect and monitor the silky wave moth in Bristol's Avon Gorge - its only English habitat - through the Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project.

 

The butterflies and moths are housed in a climate-controlled polytunnel, heated using biomass hot air machines supplied by Tiverton based company TRECO. The two 70 kW machines gently blow warm air into the polytunnel and are run on wood pellets.

 

For more information about Bristol Zoo Gardens or the new Butterfly Forest, visit the website www.bristolzoo.org.uk or phone on 0117 974 7300.