Day 66 - Grand Codroy, Newfoundland

Saturday, August 4th and the sun is shining again but the temps are only in the 70's.  We have been blessed on this trip for sure especially after talking to my sister and daughter who are telling me how terribly hot it has been in Chicago.  This morning we only had to walk across the road to tour the Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion.

This has been one of the most amazing tours and our guide explained things to us in ways that we could all understand the life cycles of butterflies, ants, bees, etc.  When we walked into the pavillion swarms of butterflies surrounded us but it was so hot and humid in there that we were barely able to take any pictures.  We weren't allowed to touch them but they could land on us - too cool!!

More pictures of butterflies of every color imaginable.  If you notice that their wings are the same color and design on each side of the body.  Bottom right look like fish but when the butterfly opens its wings, the inside is a beautiful blue color.  The appearance of the eyes scares off a potential predator. 

This facility, as you can see, is huge and has a spectacular display of butterflies, moths, ants, bees and taranchula's.  Bottom right - the butterfly or moth is the same color as the owl.  The collection is an assortment from all over the world.  Very impressive.

Top left is a container filled with thousands of ants.  They are fed different varieties of leaves - their favorite being lilac.  They cut them up and use them to build their houses which they eventually eat.  The people in the facility are very happy and proud because the University in Toronto was only able to keep them alive for a year, whereas, they've had them going on for four years.  Our guide also filled us in on the bees and their life cycle, the Queen, etc.  Us girls laughed when he told us that the female bees do all the work and the guys are useless except some of them get to mate with the Queen - then they die.  There was also a collection of bugs and other little critters that I didn't bother looking at.

The taranchula's, needless to say, were in glass enclosed containers so it was hard to get a good picture w/o reflection.  A couple of them were really quite colorful and fuzzy.  Enough said about them....

We were all lined up after our tour to travel 144 miles.  We are leaving the ocean behind us now and driving through the mountains and around lakes.  The roads in Canada aren't the smoothest so it takes extra time plus driving an RV is slower than with a car.  I had to laugh when I saw 7 fisherman standing right next to year other fly fishing.  Wouldn't they get their lines tangled up??

Picture of the Day!!

The Morpho - Butterflies that reflect light.

They are among the most beautiful butterflies in the

world.  They are highly prized by collectors.

Their colouring is not produced by pigment in the wings

but by the nature of the scales which cover the

wings and reflect light.  When they are in flight, their

colour changes according to the angle at which

the light strikes the wing surface.

Hope you had a bright and colorful day.  Should a butterfly land on your shoulder, it will mean good luck and someone is thinking of you.