Confused? Feel free to go back to the beginning.
While it may not seem obvious immediately, wandering around the butterfly garden at the Texas Discovery Gardens brings up a very good question: how does the garden get its butterflies? Well, one could just let them go wild, lay eggs, and let their caterpillars pupate and metamorphose on their own. Considering how most caterpillars find secure and discreet locations to pupate, though, most visitors would never get the chance to see those pupae before the butterflies emerged. In addition, many butterflies and moths have wasp exoparasites that lay their eggs within the pupa and emerge as adult wasps, killing the pupa before it ever gets a chance to develop.
The best option for a compromise that both promises maximum visibility for visitors and maximum protection for the butterflies is the one used by the Texas Discovery Gardens. Toward the back, near the exit airlock, is a rear display full of collected butterfly pupae, carefully pinned to the ceiling. If you’re lucky, during your visit, you might witness a fresh emergence. If you’re really lucky, you might see two separate species emerge at the same time.
